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CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH 
DRAMATISTS 


THE  S.  &  K.  DRAMATIC  SERIES. 

THE  TKUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATEB 

Anouymous.     Net  $1.00. 

FOUB  PLAYS  OF  THE  FBEE  THEATBE. 

Authorized  Translation  by  Barrett  H.  Clark. 
Preface  by  Brietix  of  the  French  Academy. 

"The  FoasUs,"  a  play  in  four  acts,  by  Francois 
de  Curel. 

"The  Serenade,"  a  Bourgeois  study  in  three 
acts,  by  Jean  Jullien. 

"Fran(oise'  Luck,"  a  comedy  in  one  act,  by 
Georges  de  Porto-Riche. 

"  The  Dupe,"  a  comedy  in  five  acts,  by  Qeorges 
Ancey.     Net  $1.50. 

THE  ANTIGONE  OF  SOPHOCLES. 
Prof.   Joseph  Edward  Harry.     Net  $1.00. 
EUEOPEAN  DRAMATISTS. 

A  Literary  and  Critical  Appraisal  of  Strindberg, 
Ibsen,  Maeterlinck,  Wilde,  Shaw  and  Barker.  By 
Archibald  Henderson,  M.A.,  Ph.D.     Net  $1.50. 

GEOBGE  BERNARD   SHAW:     HIS  LIFE  AND 
WORKS. 

By  Archibald  Henderson,  M.A.,  Ph.D.  Net 
$5.00. 

SHORT  PLAYS. 
By  Mary  MacMillan.     Net  $1.25. 

THE  GIFT— A  POETIC  DRAMA. 

By  Margaret  Douglas  Rogers.     Net  $1.00. 

LUCKY  PEHR. 
By  August  Strindberg.     Authorized  Translation 
by  Velma  Swanston  Howard.     Net  $1.50. 

EASTER  (A  Play  in  Three  Acts)  AND  STORIES. 

By  August  Strindberg.  Authorized  Transla- 
tion by  Yelma  Swanston  Howard.     Net  $1.50. 

ON  THE  SEABOARD. 

By  August  Strindberg.  The  author's  greatest 
psychological  novel.  Authorized  Translation  by 
Elizabeth   Clarke   Westergren.     Net   $1.25. 

THE   HAMLET  PROBLEM  AND  ITS  SOLU- 
TION. 
By  Emerson  Venable.     Net  $1.00. 

HOW  TO  WRITE  MOVING  PICTURE  PLAYS. 

By  W.  L.  Gordon.     Net  $1.00. 
See  page   227   for  description  of  above  Books. 

STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY.  PUBLISHERS, 
CINCINNATI,  U.S.A. 


CONTEMPORARY 
FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Studies  on  the  Theatre  Libre,  Curel,  Brieux, 

Porto-Riche,  Hervieu,  Lavedan,  Donnay, 

Rostand,  Lemattre,  Capus,  Bataille, 

Bernstein,    and   Flers   and 

Caillavet 


BY 

BARRETT  H.  CLARK 

Author  of  "The  Continental  Drama  of  Today,"  "The 

British  and  American  Drama  of  Today," 

Translator  and  Editor  "Four  j 

Plays  of  the  Free  I 

Theater," 

etc. 


CINCINNATI 

STEWART  &   KIDD   COMPANY 

1916 


Copyright,  191 5,  by 

STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY 

All  Rights  Reserved 

Copyright  in  England 


1st  Edition  September,  1915 
2nd  Edition  July,  igi6 


VAIL-BALLOU    COMPANY 

■maiMMTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


College 
Library 

552. 
C5^c 


The  studies  on  Lavedan,  Lemaitre,  and  Don- 
nay,  are  reprinted  in  revised  form,  from  my 
Three  Modern  Plays  from  the  French;  that  on 
Hervieu  from  the  translation  of  The  Labyrinth; 
certain  sections  on  the  Theatre  Libre  from  my 
Four  Plays  of  the  Free  Theater.  To  Messrs. 
Henry  Holt,  B.  W.  Huebsch  and  Stewart  &  Kidd, 
I  acknowledge  my  indebtedness  for  their  courteous 
permission  to  reprint  this  matter. 


1 1 1 fi55Q 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Characteristics ix 

The  Theatre  Libre xxi 

Francois  de  Curel i 

Eugene  Brieux i8 

Georges  de  PortoRiche 40 

Paul  Hervieu 52 

Henri  Lavedan 68 

Maurice  Donnay 86 

Edmond  Rostand 102 

Jules  Lemaitre 121 

Alfred  Capus 137 

Henry  Bataille 151 

Henry  Bernstein 167 

Robert  de  Flers  and  Gaston-Armand  de  Cail- 

lavet 178 

Bibliographies  and  Lists  of  Plays     .     .     .      .199 

Index    ,     ,     , 219 


CHARACTERISTICS 

In  this  little  collection  of  studies  I  have  tried 
rather  to  afford  the  reader  some  insight  into  the 
works  of  a  number  of  the  more  important  repre- 
sentative French  dramatists  of  the  past  twenty- 
five  years,  and  trace  in  an  informal  manner  some 
of  the  chief  characteristics  of  these  writers,  than 
to  compile  a  historical  study  of  the  contemporary 
Parisian  stage.  As  practically  every  dramatist  to 
whom  I  have  devoted  a  chapter  is  still  putting 
forth  plays,  and  many  of  them  are  well  under 
fifty,  such  an  attempt  would  lack  finality. 
Twenty  years  hence  that  compendium  can  be 
written. 

Since  Professor  Brander  Matthews'  illuminat- 
ing study  on  the  French  dramatists  nothing  has 
appeared  treating  the  average  playwright  who 
typifies  the  essential  French  spirit  of  the  day. 
Professor  Matthews'  book  ended  at  about  the 
point  where  this  begins. 

For  a  number  of  reasons  it  has  been  thought 
advisable  to  omit  a  consideration  of  Maeterlinck 
from  this  volume :  to  begin  with,  he  is  not  typi- 
cally French:  his  Belgian  origin,  his  ideas,  his 
plays  which  are  foreign  to  what  the  average 
Frenchman  knows  and  recognizes,  do  not  admit 
him  to  the  ranks  of  the  French  dramatists.  He 
is  a  world-figure  because  he  is  a  world-thinker; 

ix 


CHARACTERISTICS 


Rostand,  too,  is  a  world-figure,  but  only  because 
he  has  lifted  what  is  most  French  in  the  nation 
into  a  high  realm  of  art.  There  are,  besides,  some 
six  or  seven  entire  volumes  devoted  to  the  study 
and  analysis  of  Maeterlinck.  For  these  reasons 
he  does  not  find  a  place  in  the  present  collection. 
Those  dramatists  whom  I  have  included  are  the 
ones  who  have  stood,  during  the  past  quarter  cen- 
tury or  more,  for  the  drama  of  the  day,  and, 
with  the  single  exception  of  Rostand,  constitute 
the  average,  but  an  average,  as  I  shall  try  to  in- 
dicate, which  is  of  the  highest  excellence. 

I  have  not  of  course  mentioned  or  taken  up  all 
the  dramatists  of  distinction  or  merit;  I  have 
merely  touched  upon  many  of  those,  for  instance, 
whose  connection  with  the  Theatre  Libre  en- 
titled them  to  a  position  of  honor  as  being  his- 
torically important.  I  have  spent  little  time  on 
men  of  letters,  as  such — like  Paul  Bourget  and 
Jean  Richepin — who  have  turned  to  the  theater 
rather  as  an  avocation,  with  greater  or  less  suc- 
cess; I  have  allowed  others,  like  Pierre  Wolff, 
Romain  Coolus,  Georges  Courteline,  Emile 
Fabre,  Tristan  Bernard,  Abel  Hermant,  Jules 
Renard,  Pierre  Veber,  Maurice  Hennequin, 
Lucien  Descaves  and  Albert  Guinon,  to  give  way 
before  those  of  greater  renown  and  originality. 
Some  of  the  younger  writers,  Paul  Claudel,  Marie 
Leneru,  Henry  Kistemaeckers,  and  Sacha  Guitry, 
possess  characteristics  which  place  them  apart  and 
leave  them  beyond  the  pale  of  a  book  of  this  sort. 
It  may  be  that  I  have  failed  to  do  justice  to  some 
of  these.  But  the  well-established  dramatists, 
however,  to  whom  separate  papers  are  devoted, 

X 


CHARACTERISTICS 


represent  the  principal  tendencies  of  the  French 
stage  of  recent  years. 

With  the  exception  of  Rostand  and  Brieux,  and 
perhaps  Henry  Bernstein,  none  of  the  dramatists 
here  treated  is  well  known  in  the  United  States. 
Rostand  is,  of  course,  world-famous  because  of 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac  and  Chantecler;  Brieux  first 
attracted  notice  because  of  the  rather  inordinate 
praise  which  Bernard  Shaw  heaped  upon  him, 
while  Bernstein  is  known  to  us  only  through 
four  or  five  poor  adaptations  of  his  most  popu- 
lar plays.^  Hervieu,  Donnay,  Bataille,  Lave- 
dan,  Flers  and  Caillavet,  have  each,  through 
the  medium  of  some  sort  of  adaptation,  made 
their  way  for  short  runs  to  our  stage,  but 
they  are  no  more  than  names  to  the  average  play- 
goer. In  book-form,  the  modern  French  drama 
is  all  but  inaccessible  to  the  English  reader: 
scarcely  twenty  plays  —  of  Brieux,  Hervieu, 
Capus,  Porto-Riche,  Lavedan,  Donnay,  Lemaitre, 
and  Curel  —  are  available  in  Enghsh. 

That  we  do  not  know  the  modern  French  drama 
is  due  partly  to  the  fact  that  it  is  so  essentially 
"  French  "  that  its  subject  matter  is  totally  for- 
eign and  therefore  distasteful  to  us.  Although 
we  have  accepted  the  frank  and  sincere  treatment 
of  sex  by  a  social  worker  like  Brieux,  we  have  not 
so  far  been  able  to  adopt  the  French  point  of  view 
—  or  rather  the  European  point  of  view  —  and 
consider  sex  plays  as  works  of  art.  We  may  take 
pride  in  the  fact  that  we  will  not  appreciate  the 
beauties  of  Bataille's  La  Femme  nue,  or  Porto- 

lA   translation    of    The    Thief   has   just    appeared    {Drama 
League  Series). 

xi 


CHARACTERISTICS 


Riche's  Amoiireuse  or  Donnay's  Amants,  and  we 
may  very  possibly  be  right  in  asserting  that  the 
French  nation  places  far  too  great  emphasis  on 
sex,  but  we  cannot  as  students  of  the  drama  close 
our  eyes  to  facts  or  to  a  whole  art  which  is  based 
upon  a  principle  with  which  we  heartily  disagree. 
We  should  at  least  have  an  opportunity  of  study- 
ing serious  plays  some  of  which  have  been  ac- 
cepted by  critics  and  audiences  as  masterpieces 
which  will  live  by  reason  of  their  essential  truth 
and  their  literary  style,  as  well  as  their  subject 
matter.  If  the  French  nation  is  producing  such 
plays.  It  is  a  duty  at  least  to  consider  them,  and 
not  quarrel  with  the  dramatists  who  for  the  most 
part  have  done  their  best  to  paint  the  life  of  their 
time  as  they  saw  it. 

In  gathering  my  material  I  have  often  had  occa- 
sion to  speak  with  some  of  the  authors  on  this  par- 
ticular point.  Scarcely  one  of  them  could  under- 
stand the  attitude  of  the  average  Anglo-Saxon. 
When  I  asked  Maurice  Donnay  which  play  he 
would  prefer  to  have  translated  as  a  typical  ex- 
ample of  his  work,  he  replied  at  once  :  "  Amants." 
I  said  that  the  play  would  not  be  accepted  on  the 
stage,  and  I  expressed  a  doubt  as  to  whether  in 
book  form  in  would  be  read  in  the  sympathetic 
mood  it  was  intended  to  arouse,  and  told  him  that 
it  ran  the  risk  of  being  criticised  on  the  ground  of 
its  immorality.  "Why?"  he  enquired.  I  then 
attempted  to  explain  our  attitude  toward  sex  plays 
and  told  him  that  we  demanded  for  the  most  part 
atonement  in  our  plays  and  our  literature  for  vio- 
lation of  the  conventions  surrounding  sex-rela- 
tionship.    Donnay  very  wiUingly  averred  that  he 

xii 


CHARACTERISTICS 


could  not  quarrel  with  that  attitude,  but  what  did  it 
have  to  do  with  the  case  in  question?  He  tried  to 
prove  nothing  in  Amants;  he  merely  wrote  what 
he  saw  and  felt!  On  another  occasion  I  asked 
Francois  de  Curel  why  most  of  his  plays  were 
caviar  to  the  French  public,  and  he  said  that  with 
the  exception  of  his  latest  play,  La  Danse  devant 
le  Miroir,  sex  played  but  a  minor  part  in  his  works. 
He  then  added:  "The  French  dramatists  treat 
of  love  because  it  is  the  only  subject  which  every 
member  of  the  audience  understands,  and  a  drama- 
tist must  of  course  appeal  to  the  masses."  I  then 
asked  why  practically  all  the  dramatists  kept  in- 
sisting on  the  old  theme,  the  triangle,  and  he  re- 
peated what  he  had  said  before  —  and  shrugged 
his  shoulders. 

If  the  drama  be  a  representation  of  life,  we  must 
conclude  that  the  French  nation  —  in  Paris,  at 
least,  for  there  is  no  drama  outside  the  capital  — 
is  prone  to  lay  too  much  stress  on  sex.  But  if  this 
is  a  fact,  we  obviously  cannot  find  fault  with  the 
dramatists.  We  may,  if  we  are  so  inclined,  criti- 
cise the  French  people,  but  we  must  at  least  admit 
that  they  are  frank.  There  is  not  so  great  a  dif- 
ference between  nations  that  simply  because  as  a 
people  we  either  fear  or  bring  frank  sex  treat- 
ment to  our  stage,  or  are  unable  to  produce  drama- 
tists able  to  do  so,  are  therefore  blameless.  We 
must  argue  rather  that  the  Frenchman  is  braver 
and  more  of  an  artist  than  the  American  or  the 
Englishman.  If  our  American  drama  Is  to  reflect 
American  life,  we  must  be  sincere.  There  are 
women  in  America  like  Porto-Riche's  Amoureuse, 
but  we  have  not  as  yet  dared  to  place  them  on  the 

xiii 


CHARACTERISTICS 


stage;  it  is  not  P*uritanism  which  prevents  our  so 
doing,  but  fear  of  looking  facts  in  the  face  —  and 
the  want  of  a  Porto-Riche.  "  Free-love  "  unions 
exist  in  our  land,  and  the  partners  are  not  always 
punished.  Donnay  told  the  truth,  which  was  not 
after  all  so  unpleasant,  but  we  have  no  writer  as 
yet  who  would  or  could  write  an  American  Amants. 

Still,  the  everlasting  husband,  wife,  and  lover, 
is  tiresome.  If  sex  is  one  of  the  greatest  ele- 
ments and  motive-forces  in  life,  it  is  not  the  only 
one.  Even  the  French  have  recognized  this,  and 
occasional  plays  —  Brieux's  L'Engrenage  and  La 
Robe  rouge,  Curel's  Le  Repas  du  lion,  Rostand's 
Cyrano,  Bourget's  La  Barricade,  and  Fabre's  Les 
Ventres  dores  —  break  the  monotony.  But  the 
fact  remains  that  they  have  no  Galsworthy,  no 
Granville  Barker,  no  Bernard  Shaw.  Their  essen- 
tial provinciality,  exclusiveness,  snobbery  possibly, 
have  prevented  their  branching  out.  For  a  time 
Antoine  forced  the  Parisian  public  to  a  knowledge 
of  Ibsen  and  Bjornson  and  Hauptmann  and  Tol- 
stoy; during  the  past  twenty  years  Lugne-Poe  and 
his  Theatre  de  I'Oeuvre  have  presented  foreign 
works  from  time  to  time,  but  the  French  public 
will  have  its  own  plays  depicting  its  own  little 
round  of  life. 

There  are  few  contrasts  more  striking  than  that 
between  Paris  and  Berlin  as  theater  centers. 
Something  over  a  hundred  new  plays  are  produced 
annually  in  each  city ;  Paris  counts  but  ten  or  twelve 
new  plays  by  foreign  authors,  Berlin  not  many 
more  by  native  writers.  Paris  knows  practically 
nothing  of  Pinero  and  Jones  and  Barker  and  Gals- 
worthy, and  misunderstands  Shaw  with  unfailing 

xiv 


CHARACTERISTICS 


regularity,  whenever  the  proverbially  small  band 
of  enthusiasts  is  fortunate  enough  to  organize  a 
production  of  his  simplest  plays.  During  the 
season  of  19 14  two  or  three  plays  of  Galsworthy 
were  produced  in  a  number  of  German  theaters, 
and  three  translations  issued  in  book  form;  Shaw's 
Pygmalion  was  produced  and  printed  nearly  a 
year  before  it  was  seen  in  London;  Mrs.  War- 
ren's Profession  ran  at  a  People's  Theater  in  Ber- 
lin during  the  greater  part  of  the  winter,  while 
ten  or  twelve  of  Shaw's  plays  made  their  ap- 
pearance regularly  in  some  twenty  cities  of  the 
Empire.  The  past  season  in  Berlin  counts  among 
its  productions  of  foreign  plays,  some  of  the  best 
works  of  Shakespeare,  Wilde,  Strindberg,  Bjorn- 
son,  Ibsen,  Tolstoy,  Gorky,  Brieux,  Flers  and 
Caillavet,  Tristan  Bernard,  Synge,  Hamsun,  Pail- 
leron,  and  Croisset.  In  Paris  the  season  was  an 
unusual  one,  for  Lugne-Poe  afforded  his  audience 
their  first  opportunity  of  seeing  the  Playboy  of  the 
fVestern  World,  and  achieved  the  extraordinary 
feat  of  making  a  success  of  Carl  Rossler's  Five 
Frankfurters.  An  adaptation  of  a  play  by  Paul 
Lindau  had  a  successful  run  at  the  Theatre  An- 
toine,  while  Bahr's  Das  Konzert  failed  at  the 
Rejane.  That  very  nearly  completes  the  list  of 
foreign  plays  for  Paris.  The  Frenchman's  ig- 
norance of  foreign  drama  might  be  urged  as  an 
excuse  for  his  own  narrowness,  but  as  a  rule  he  is 
willfully  ignorant.* 

iM.  Adolphe  Brisson  (in  Le  Theatre,  1912)  said:  "The 
other  countries  —  except  perhaps  in  its  own  narrow  way,  Bel- 
giuni  —  drag  out  a  languishing  and  poverty-stricken  existence. 
Ibsen  and  Bjornson  are  no  more.  Gerhart  Hauptmann  is  written 
out.    Bernard    Shaw   is   scattering.    Read    the    articles    of    the 

XV 


CHARACTERISTICS 


The  French  attitude  seems  to  be:  We  have 
good  dramatists  of  our  own;  why  therefore  seek 
to  know  of  those  of  other  countries,  most  of  whom 
have  doubtless  learned  their  technic  from  Scribe 
and  Augier?  This  may  be  well  for  France  as  a 
nation,  and  the  Germans  on  their  part  may  be 
forced  to  look  abroad  for  lack  of  native  talent, 
but  the  French  suffer  because  they  choose  to  iso- 
late themselves,  theatrically. 

As  a  rule,  then,  we  shall  find  the  French  drama- 
tist somewhat  narrow  both  in  subject-matter  and 
treatment,  but  on  the  other  hand,  we  shall  ob- 
serve an  intensification,  a  power  oiF  concentrating 
upon  character,  and  a  technical  facility  of  the  high- 
est order.  From  the  generalities  of  Scribe  they 
have  come  to  particularize  and  have  given  us  full- 
length  portraits  which  are  contributions  to  litera- 
ture and  the  drama.  Each  phase  of  daily  life  we 
find  pictured  in  detail  with  striking  verisimilitude. 
Capus  draws  the  little  merchant,  the  boulevardier, 
the  cocotte,  with  an  unerring  hand;  Lavedan 
paints  the  aristocrat,  contrasting  him  with  the  par- 
venu btDurgeois;  Porto-Riche,  Bataille,  and  Don- 
nay,  the  lovers;  Bernstein  sums  up  in  tensely 
dramatic    situations    the    tremendous    forces    at 

foreign  critics;  they  speak  only  of  disappointed  hopes,  regrets. 
.  .  .  '  We  have  in  London,'  says  Mr.  Walkley, '  a  number  of  clever 
purveyors,  but  no  great  dramatist.'  M.  Delines  describes  the 
emptiness  of  the  Russian  stage,  which  is  reduced  to  seeking  its 
pleasure  in  the  old-fashioned  works  of  Turgenev  and  Tolstoy. 
Austria's  sole  contribution  is  one  play,  Faith  and  Fireside, 
written  by  a  newcomer,  Schonherr.  M.  Prater  assures  us,  even, 
that  in  this  piece  'cleverness  takes  the  place  of  talent.'  In  Hun- 
gary, M.  Melchior  Lengyel  produced  his  Typhoon  .  .  .  the  only 
interesting  play  of  the  season.  In  the  United  States  absolute 
barrenness  of  literary  works.  .  .  ." 

xvi 


CHARACTERISTICS 


work  in  modern  society.  Hervieu  is  largely  in- 
terested in  the  more  abstract  questions  concerning 
mankind;  he  maintains  a  distant  attitude  and 
judges  his  fellow-creatures  in  well-patterned 
thesis  plays;  Brieux,  more  warm-blooded,  batters 
the  prejudices  of  the  day  and  attacks  the  institu- 
tions of  men  on  the  one  hand,  and  draws  memo- 
rable pictures  of  the  peasantry  and  the  bourgeoisie, 
on  the  other.  Curel  stands  apart,  coldly  dissect- 
ing the  abnormalities  of  modern  victims  of  society. 

With  few  exceptions  —  and  these  are  to  be 
found  among  the  works  of  Curel  and  Brieux  — 
the  plays  of  these  men  are  all  variations  of  the 
piece  bien  faite;  the  average  excellence  of  con- 
struction becomes  tiresome  in  the  long  run.  We 
long  for  a  little  of  Frank  Wedekind's  brutality, 
Hauptmann's  negligence,  Andreyev's  intentional 
crudity.  We  weary  of  "  good  writing."  Per- 
haps if  the  Academy  were  not  so  often  uppermost 
in  the  mind  of  the  French  dramatists,  and  its 
coveted  portals  not  so  readily  accessible  to  the 
dramatic  brotherhood,  France  would  have  a  more 
vigorous  drama. 

If  the  plays  of  Henry  Becque  and  if  Andre 
Antoine's  epoch-making  Theatre  Libre  ushered 
in  a  new  dramatic  movement,  influencing  most  of 
the  dramatists  of  modern  France  and  led  them 
to  observe  life  more  carefully  than  it  had  been 
hitherto  observed,  if  Antoine  revolutionized  the 
art  of  acting,  he  was  still  unable  to  kill  the  so- 
called  Romantic  drama  —  an  end,  which  he  him- 
self has  declared,  he  never  desired. 

In  1898  the  French  critic  Augustin  Filon  in  his 
book,  De  Dumas  a  Rostand  —  translated  as  The 

xvii 


CHARACTERISTICS 


Modern  French  Drama  —  hailed  the  dawn  of  a 
new  era  and  wrote  enthusiastically  of  the  Revival 
of  Verse  on  the  Stage.  He  said:  "But  the 
crowning  fact  to  which  I  have  striven  to  give 
prominence  in  this  my  last  study,  is  the  revival  of 
verse  on  the  stage.  And  it  is  not  only  dramatic 
verse  which  is  now  flourishing  in  several  theaters, 
lyrical  verse  has  its  share  in  this  revival,  and  ap- 
propriates one  evening  a  week  at  the  Odeon.  At 
the  Bodiniere  it  is  quite  at  home,  and  although 
much  that  is  impure  mingles  with  the  poetry  in 
the  amusement  provided  at  the  famous  Butte,  it 
must  be  recognized  that  poetry  holds  the  first 
place  there,  and  has  become  indispensable.  A 
quarter  of  a  century  ago,  it  would  have  been  sim- 
ply ignored,  but  from  an  outcast  it  has  become  a 
queen."  William  L.  Courtney,  in  his  introduc- 
tion to  M.  Filon's  volume,  writes:  "We  have 
got  now  to  the  latest  phase  of  French  dramatic 
art,  which  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  real 
romantic  revival."  The  moment  seemed  an  aus- 
picious one :  Rostand's  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  and 
Jean  Richepin's  Le  Chemineau  had  just  appeared, 
and  it  did  seem  that  authors  and  public,  turning 
from  the  Antoine  school,  had  found  in  Romance 
a  new  channel.  But  the  "  revival  "  was  only  mo- 
mentary. To-day,  in  spite  of  poetic  plays  by  such 
writers  as  Andre  Rivoire,  Paul  Claudel,  Rene 
Fauchois,  Gabriel  Trarieux,  Albert  Poizat  and  two 
or  three  others,  the  tendency  in  drama  is  realistic. 
Rostand,  since  Cyrano,  has  written  but  one  ro- 
mantic play  —  L'Aiglon.  Chantecler  is  modern 
in  spirit.  Richepin,  in  spite  of  Par  le  Glaive  and 
Don  Quichotte,  has  done  nothing  comparable  with 

xviii 


CHARACTERISTICS 


Le  Chemineau,  while  his  latest  play  was  an  unsuc- 
cessful trifle:  Le  Tango!  Miguel  Zamacois,  in 
Les  Bouffons  and  La  Fleur  merve'tlleuse,  has  in- 
dubitably contributed  charming  poetic  romances, 
but  he  is  a  pleasing  exception.  Jean  Aicard's  ro- 
mantic verse-plays  are  not  popular,  and  Le  Pere 
Lebonnard,  his  best  known,  is  a  modern  work  in 
which  verse  happened  to  be  employed  as  a  medium. 
France  continues  in  the  line  of  her  traditions. 
If  for  a  time  Naturalism  broke  out,  in  its  most  vio- 
lent adherents  —  like  Jean  Jullien,  Georges  Ancey, 
and  Emile  Zola  —  it  was  only  for  a  short  time, 
and  the  early  Theatre  Libre  writers,  like  Brieux, 
have  since  the  first  aggressive  days,  settled  down 
and  established  a  sane  equilibrium.  The  Capus', 
Donnays,  Lavedans,  and  Pierre  Wolffs,  are 
lineal  descendants  of  Scribe  and  Dumas  fils  and 
Augier.  The  French  drama  seems  doomed  to  be 
the  drama  of  tradition;  this  is  at  once  its  virtue  and 
its  defect.  As  a  result  of  inbreeding  it  may  oc- 
casionally fall  into  corruption,  but  by  reason  of 
specialization  a  well-balanced,  highly-finished  me- 
dium of  expression  emerges.  This  is  France's 
contribution.  If  we  demand  novelty,  an  infusion 
of  new  blood,  we  must  wait  for  a  revolutionary 
genius,  another  Moliere. 


XIX 


THE  THEATRE  LIBRE 

Andre  Antoine  is  now  past  his  prime,  though 
he  continues  with  indefatigable  zeal  one  of  the 
most  difficult  of  tasks:  that  of  directing  the  Odeon 
Theater.  Almost  any  day  a  large,  strongly-built, 
stoop-shouldered  man,  his  eyes  fixed  steadfastly  on 
the  ground,  may  be  seen  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
Odeon.  His  face,  every  feature  of  it,  gives  evi- 
dence of  a  crude,  almost  brutal,  forcefulness;  it  is 
at  the  same  time  the  honest  open  face  of  the  bour- 
geois, with  an  added  air  of  inexorable  determina- 
tion. Once  a  revoke  at  the  head  of  a  small  band 
of  co-workers,  he  is  now  the  respectable  and  rather 
conservative  manager  of  one  of  the  state  subsi- 
dized theaters.^ 

March  30th,  1887,  is  a  memorable  date.  On 
that  evening  a  group  of  amateurs,  under  the  direc- 
tion of  an  employee  of  the  Gas  Company  on  a 
salary  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  year, 
presented  four  new  and  original  one-act  plays  upon 
a  little  stage  improvised  in  a  hall  situated  in  the 
inconspicuous  and  high-sounding  Passage  de 
I'Elysee  des  Beaux-Arts,  not  far  from  where  the 
notorious    Moulin-Rouge    now   stands.     The    ex- 

1  Since  the  above  was  written,  Antoine  has  been  forced  to 
resign  his  position  as  director  of  the  Odeon.  As  he  was  threat- 
ened with  bankruptcy  because  of  certain  unwise  ventures  from  a 
business  point  of  view,  his  friends  organized  a  benefit  for  him, 
allowing  him  to  leave  for  Constantinople,  where  he  now  directs 
a  theater. 

xxi 


THE  THEATRE  LIBRE 


penses  for  that  performance  were  defrayed  almost 
entirely  by  the  young  Antoine,  who  had  arranged 
that  the  production  should  coincide  with  his  pay- 
day, the  30th  of  the  month.  The  upshot  of  it  all 
was  that  one  of  the  little  pieces  was  immediately 
accepted  at  the  Odeon,  and  —  what  was  of  far 
greater  import  —  a  new  movement  was  started. 
The  experiment  received  some  notice,  but  practi- 
cally no  financial  foundation.  The  first  perform- 
ance had  exhausted  the  meager  resources  of  the 
young  director,  and  it  appeared  as  if  the  theater 
would  fail  through  lack  of  funds.  He  managed 
to  collect  enough  money  to  risk  one  more  perform- 
ance, however,  and  on  the  next  convenient  pay-day 
—  May  30th  —  made  a  second  attempt,  giving  on 
this  occasion  Emile  Bergerat's  La  Nuit  bergam- 
esque  and  Oscar  Metenier's  En  Famille  —  one 
verse  and  one  prose  play.  This  latter  perform- 
ance drew  to  it  among  other  well-known  literary 
men,  Alphonse  Daudet,  Francisque  Sarcey,  and 
Emile  Zola.  Antoine  was  encouraged  now  to  pro- 
ceed and  carry  out  the  ideas  he  was  at  the  time 
beginning  to  formulate.  He  accordingly  resigned 
his  position  at  the  Gas  Company,  and  devoted  his 
time  and  energy  to  getting  subscriptions  for  the 
fall  season.  We  are- told  that  in  order  to  econo- 
mize he  carried  Invitations  to  subscribers  by  hand, 
thereby  saving  considerable  postage. 

The  season  opened  on  October  12th,  with  two 
plays,  U Evasion  —  in  one  act  —  by  Villiers  de 
I'Isle  Adam,  and  Soeur  Philomene,  a  dramatiza- 
tion of  the  novel  of  the  same  name  by  the  Gon- 
courts.  By  the  end  of  the  year  seventeen  plays  had 
been  produced,  among  them  Tolstoy's  The  Power 

xxii 


THE  THEATRE  LIBRE 


of  Darkness,  Jullien's  La  Serenade,  Hennique's 
Esther  Brandes  —  all  for  the  first  time  in  France. 
Again  Antoine's  success  left  him  nearly  bankrupt, 
but  he  set  about  getting  subscribers  once  more, 
and  by  the  end  of  his  second  season  he  had  taken 
in  more  than  forty  thousand  francs.  Together 
with  material  success  came  encouragement,  from 
the  public,  the  critics,  the  press  in  general;  the 
company,  now  receiving  salaries,  was  able  to  de- 
vote all  its  time  to  acting.  The  Theatre  Libre 
moved  into  a  larger  house,  and  assumed  a  position 
of  importance  in  the  French  playgoing  world  of 
the  day. 

Antoine  founded  his  theater  with  the  idea  of  in- 
ducing new  and  original  dramatists  to  produce 
works  which  the  prejudice  of  managers  and  public 
otherwise  afforded  no  opportunity  of  producing. 
The  French  stage  of  the  day  was  so  conventional 
that  only  plays  written  according  to  accepted  stand- 
ards would  attract  audiences.  At  least  this  is 
what  the  managers  thought  —  and  the  result  was 
the  same.  Together  with  conventional  plays  went 
conventional  acting  and  conventional  stage-setting. 

Antoine  felt  that  all  this  was  wrong,  and  he  did 
his  best  to  set  it  right.  Adolphe  Thalasso  briefly 
sums  up  the  "  esthetique  "  of  the  new  venture  in 
his  book  on  Le  Theatre  Libre:  "  Plays  in  which 
life  supplies  movement  begin  to  take  the  place  of 
those  in  which  movement  supplies  life.  Compli- 
cated plots  give  way  to  simple  stories ;  the  play  of 
intrigue  is  offset  by  the  study  of  reality;  characters 
become  natural,  classic;  the  tragic  and  comic  are 
no  longer  mingled :  the  genres  have  become  dis- 
tinct. Interminable,  vagarious  plays  give  way  to 
xxiii 


THE  THEATRE  LIBRE 


short,  concise,  rapid  ones.  The  tirade  disappears; 
bombast  and  bathos  are  relegated  to  the  back- 
ground. ...  no  more  '  raisonneurs  '  .  .  .  facts 
alone  explain  the  philosophy  of  the  piece.  The 
eternally  sympathetic  and  benevolent  character  Is 
likewise  driven  out.  The  authors  go  to  the  very 
sources  of  life  for  the  morality  of  their  plays. 
So  much  the  worse  for  morality  If  their  '  moral '  is 
immoral!  Such  is  life  —  and  the  theater  should 
be  not  an  amusement,  but  an  image  of  life.  Tech- 
nical gymnastics  are  thrown  aside:  the  human 
heart  needs  more  than  the  tricks  of  the  trade  In 
order  to  be  explained.  The  theater  of  to-day 
must  be  a  revolt  against  that  of  yesterday.  As  in 
all  revolutions,  there  Is  a  good  deal  of  exaggera- 
tion, for  the  new  methods  are  driven  home  with 
hammering  blows.  To  attain  the  desired  end,  the 
revolutionists  overstep  the  bounds,  and  in  striking 
down  the  guilty,  the  Innocent  are  not  spared." 

This  at  least  is  a  statement  of  the  ideals  of  the 
theater,  which  were,  needless  to  say,  not  always 
lived  up  to;  the  long  traditions  of  French  drama 
could  not  so  easily  be  thrown  to  the  winds.  Often 
even  in  the  most  iconoclastic  of  the  Theatre  Libre 
plays,  we  are  conscious  of  the  influence  of  Scribe 
and  Sardou,  and  occasionally  the  technique  of  the 
piece  bien  faite  is  the  only  redeeming  feature  of 
these  plays.  Yet  this  point  should  not  be  too 
strongly  urged,  for  there  was  ever  a  conscious  ef- 
fort to  throw  off  what  was  bad  and  conventional 
in  the  past,  and  seek  new  roads,  new  means  of 
expression  fitted  to  subjects  which  had  hitherto  but 
rarely  found  a  place  in  the  theater. 

Antoine's  new  methods  of  acting  and  manag- 
xxlv 


THE  THEATRE  LIBRE 


ing,  his  contribution  to  what  is  now  spoken  of  as 
the  art  of  the  theater,  do  not  properly  belong  in 
the  present  discussion,  which  is  confined  to  outlin- 
ing the  beginnings  of  the  modern  movement  in 
France.  It  may  be  said  in  passing  that  he  did 
much  to  modify  the  Conservatoire  style  of  acting, 
and  that  to-day  at  the  Comedie  Frangaise  many 
of  his  "reforms" — the  actor's  turning  his  back 
to  the  audience  while  speaking,  for  instance  —  are 
accepted  without  a  murmur.  Very  shortly  after 
the  foundation  of  the  Theatre  Libre,  Antoine  had 
some  difficulty  in  holding  his  company  together,  so 
great  was  the  demand  for  new-style  actors  at  such 
old  and  well-established  theaters  as  the  Renais- 
sance, the  Porte  Saint-Martin,  and  the  Gymnase. 
To-day  many  of  the  little  band  of  amateurs  are 
among  the  best-known  actors  of  the  French  stage. 
It  is  of  course  impossible  to  say  whether  the 
extraordinarily  large  number  of  dramatists  who 
had  an  opportunity  of  offering  th-eir  first  works 
under  Antoine  would  otherwise  have  entered  the 
field  of  the  drama;  it  is  probable  that  such  born 
men  of  the  theater  as  Lavedan,  Porto-Riche,  and 
Pierre  Wolff,  would  sooner  or  later  have  made 
their  way  to  the  popular  theaters.  But  whether 
Brieux,  Jullien,  Hennique,  Ancey,  and  above  all 
Curel  would  have  used  the  drama  as  a  medium  is 
more  open  to  doubt.  Of  these,  Jullien,  Ancey,  and 
Hennique,  have  been  successful  only  under  the 
Antoine  regime;  while  they  did  much  for  the 
movement  in  its  day,  they  were  later  unable  to 
adapt  themselves  to  such  modifications  as  were 
necessary   to   meet   with   popular   approval,    and 

XXV 


THE  THEATRE  LIBRE 


ceased  writing  for  the  theater.  Brieux,  assimilat- 
ing what  was  best  in  the  new  methods,  made  it  his 
own,  and  continued  to  modify  it,  combining  his 
innate  sense  of  the  theater  with  what  he  had 
learned  from  Antoine.  Together  with  Curel,  who 
has  less  than  Brieux  modified  his  methods,  he  is 
the  most  original  thinker  of  the  French  stage  of 
to-day.  Curel,  like  Hennique  and  Ancey  and 
Jullien,  was  never  a  popular  writer,  has  neverthe- 
less continued  to  produce  his  plays  and  maintain 
his  position  apart  and  hold  it  with  honor. 

Antoine  discovered  Brieux  and  Curel.  When 
Brieux  was  a  poor  obscure  editor  in  Rouen  he  sent 
to  Antoine  the  manuscript  of  his  first  important 
play,  Menages  d'artistes.  This  bourgeois  study, 
with  one  or  two  strong  scenes  and  a  great  deal  of 
good  "  milieu  "  painting,  attracted  the  young  man- 
ager who  produced  the  same  author's  second  play, 
Blanchette,  a  play  which  has  held  the  stage  to  this 
day.  In  the  paper  on  Curel  I  have  related  how 
that  writer  sent  Antoine  the  manuscripts  of  three 
of  his  plays,  under  three  separate  names,  and  how 
the  manager  accepted  all  three. 

Porto-Riche  was  another  for  whose  plays  An- 
toine literally  forced  an  audience.  In  producing 
La  Chance  de  Francoise  he  opened  the  way  for 
Amoureuse.  Courteline,  too,  that  ingenious  comic 
writer,  received  his  first  encouragement  at  the 
Theatre  Libre.  Would  Boubouroche  otherwise 
have  seen  the  light?  Emile  Fabre,  the  virile  au- 
thor of  L' Argent  and  Les  Ventres  dores,  has  fur- 
nished the  stage  with  plays  of  society  and  finance, 
which  still  hold  the  stage.  Paul  Ginisty,  Pierre 
Wolf?,  and  Albert  Guinon  are  among  the  numerous 

xxvi 


THE  THEATRE  LIBRE 


others  who  received  their  first  impetus  under  An- 
toine. 

No  one  man  can  turn  the  tide  in  so  great  and 
important  a  movement  as  that  in  which  Antoine 
labored.  A  few  years  before  the  founding  of  his 
theater,  Henry  Becque,  the  father  of  stage  Nat- 
uralism in  France,  produced  two  plays,  La  Paris- 
ienne  and  Les  Corbeaux,  which  went  far  to  influ- 
ence the  new  writers.  The  Come  die  rosse,  of 
which  La  Parisienne  is  the  typical  instance,  became 
de  rigueur,  while  Les  Corbeaux  was  accepted  as 
the  "  Bible  of  the  Naturalists."  Becque  and  An- 
toine, then,  with  their  associates  and  followers, 
gave  Naturahsm  a  chance  in  the  theater,  and  ac- 
complished at  least  a  revolution  in  the  taste  of  the 
public.  If  that  taste  has  since  become  modified, 
it  was  but  a  wholesome  reaction  against  what  was 
most  violent  and  transitory  in  the  new  movement. 
The  good  remains  —  in  Brieux  and  Curel  and 
Porto-Riche  and  Fabre  —  the  bad  has  already 
died  a  natural  death. 

Not  long  ago  Curel  had  occasion  to  render  hom- 
age to  Antoine  in  the  following  words :  "  I  be- 
lieve that  the  greatest  service  rendered  by  the 
Theatre  Libre  was  that  of  liberating  the  modern 
French  stage  from  all  schools  and  literary  coteries. 
A  day  will  come  when  greater  justice  will  be  done 
our  dramatic  era,  when  the  full  extent  of  its  orig- 
inality and  independence  will  be  fully  realized. 
The  originality  and  independence  of  which  I  speak 
are  due  for  the  most  part  to  the  Theatre  Libre." 
Brieux  lately  wrote  as  follows :  "  He  [Antoine] 
it  was  who  discovered  for  the  public  a  great  num- 
ber of  authors  whose  works  had  never  been  pre- 
xxvii 


THE  THEATRE  LIBRE 


sented,  certain  among  whom  would  never  have  had 
a  chance  of  production  without  his  aid.  He  intro- 
duced Ibsen  for  the  first  time  to  the  French  na- 
tion, and  Francois  de  Curel  to  the  public  at  large. 
Antoine  created  a  taste  for  mise  en  scene  which 
was  more  artistic,  and  did  not  constitute  an  insult 
to  the  spectator.  .  .  .  He  reduced  the  number  of 
scenic  conventions,  he  encouraged  new  authors 
by  affording  them  success,  and  aroused  in  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  the  masses  the  power  to 
understand  and  feel  in  the  presence  of  noble  dra- 
matic works.  It  is  not  his  fault  If  the  public  is 
nowadays  but  rarely  given  the  occasion  to  satisfy 
that  appetite  for  better  things  which  he  went  so 
far  to  train,  and  which  now  seems  about  to  disap- 
pear for  lack  of  proper  nourishment." 


XXVllI 


FRANCOIS  DE  CUREL 

Viscount  FRANgois  de  Curel  is  the  only 
dramatist  considered  in  the  present  collection 
for  whom  playwriting  is  an  avocation.  His 
large  fortune,  extensive  business  and,  above  all, 
his  keen  interest  in  hunting,  occupy  the  greater 
portion  of  his  time.  His  ten  plays  cover  a 
period  of  more  than  twenty  years;  the  first  eight 
were  produced  between  1892  and  1900,  the 
ninth  in  1906,  the  latest  in  19 14.  Curel  writes 
then  to  please  himself,  and  if  his  efforts  be 
judged  according  to  the  criterion  of  popular  ap- 
proval, he  has  not  often  pleased  the  public.  As 
he  himself  once  said,  he  was  ideally  situated  to 
wait  for  ideas  and  the  necessary  impetus  and  in- 
spiration to  develop  them.  He  has  never  been  a 
"  man  of  the  theater,"  he  was  never  forced  to 
write  down  to  his  public.  Following  his  own  in- 
clinations, and  writing  only  when  writing  came 
naturally  and  easily,  his  work  bears  the  imprint 
of  great  care  both  as  to  style  and  content.  Ab- 
normal cases  in  the  psychology  of  crime,  heredity, 
sex  pathology,  character  analysis  of  the  subtlest 
and  most  evasive  sort,  are  what  fill  his  strange 
plays.  There  is  never  any  conscious  effort  to 
please  or  popularize,  so  that  it  is  not  difficult  to 
see  the  reason  of  the  failure  of  nearly  every  work. 
The  love  element,  pure  and  simple,  so  cherished 

I 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

by  all  audiences,  especially  the  French,  is  never  in- 
troduced per  se :  he  may  at  times  tell  a  love  story, 
but  it  is  stripped  of  its  romance,  perhaps  even  of 
its  legitimate  appeal.  This  continual  insistence 
upon  the  abnormal  in  human  nature  doubtless  tells 
against  Curel  as  a  commentator  on  human  nature 
in  general,  but  we  may  always  be  sure  to  find  in 
his  works  a  sincere,  masterly,  and  complete  treat- 
ment of  whatever  strange  corner  or  unfrequented 
byway  of  science  the  dramatist  chooses  to  consider. 

In  the  Rue  de  Crenelle,  one  of  the  old  streets 
of  the  Faubourg  Saint-Germain,  stands  the  ances- 
tral mansion  of  the  de  Curels.  Under  the  high 
gate  and  through  a  spacious  court-yard  I  made  my 
way  one  afternoon,  up  to  one  of  the  huge  wings 
set  apart  for  the  use  of  Monsieur  de  Curel  on  the 
occasion  of  his  rare  visits  to  Paris.  A  short, 
thick-set,  ruddy-complexioned,  black-bearded  man 
greeted  me  with  a  merry  smile  and  cordial  hand- 
shake. He  looked  like  a  brownie.  I  had  imag- 
ined the  author  of  Les  Fossiles  as  a  severely  de- 
meanored  aristocrat,  serious,  even  cold  in  manner, 
but  to  be  met  by  a  jolly,  almost  hilarious  little 
fellow  was  something  of  a  surprise.  He  almost 
bounced  into  his  library,  and  there  put  me  into  a 
large  comfortable  arm-chair  before  the  fire.  He 
then  proceeded  to  balance  himself  on  the  arm  of 
another  chair. 

"  I  must  apologize,"  he  said,  "  for  not  knowing 
a  word  of  English.  It's  quite  inexcusable,  for  I 
have  English  blood  in  my  veins !  " 

To  every  question  he  gave  willing  and  concise 
answer,  but  I  suspected  that  "  the  Drama  "  was 
not  one  of  his  hobbies.     Just  what  his  pet  hobby 

2 


FRANCOIS  DE  CUREL 


was  I  was  not  long  in  learning.  The  moment 
there  was  a  lull  in  the  conversation  he  asked  me 
to  excuse  him  a  moment.  "  I  have  something 
that  may  interest  you!  "  While  he  was  gone,  I 
had  occasion  to  remark  the  many  pictures  that 
hung  on  the  walls  of  the  library  and  hall,  and 
noted  examples  of  Monet,  Manet,  Cazin,  and  Mil- 
let. Was  this  man,  too,  an  art  collector?  His 
strident  voice  called  me  into  another  room,  where 
he  bade  me  be  seated  at  a  table,  upon  which  he 
spread  some  forty  or  fifty  snap-shots.  Beaming 
with  pride,  he  asked  me  whether  I  liked  hunting, 
and  then  proceeded  to  explain  each  of  the  pictures : 
Francois  de  Curel  with  a  rifle  slung  over  his  back 
and  a  boar  or  deer  at  his  feet,  was  the  subject  of 
most  of  these.  Then  there  was  Francois  de 
Curel  with  two  foresters,  Francois  de  Curel  in 
front  of  one  of  his  hunting-lodges  on  his  estate 
in  Lorraine :  Frangois  de  Curel  as  hunter  was  evi- 
dently more  attractive  to  him  than  Francois  de 
Curel  as  a  dramatist.  "  I  love  the  country,"  he 
exclaimed,  "  it  is  my  home.  I  come  to  Paris  only 
to  superintend  the  production  of  a  play  or  on  other 
business.  In  Lorraine  I  look  after  my  affairs, 
my  factory,  and  my  estate.  Meantime  I  hunt  — 
I  write  occasionally.  You  see,  I'm  a  bachelor,  and 
I  spend  the  long  winter  nights,  sitting  in  front  of 
a  huge  fire,  with  my  dogs  curled  up  about  me,  and 
read.  I  don't  think  I'm  to  be  pitied,  now,  do 
you?  "  Again  he  laughed  that  genial  laugh,  and 
the  author  of  L'Envers  d'une  sainte  was  less  him- 
self than  ever. 

Francois  de  Curel  was  born  at  Metz  in  1854. 
He  was  a  precocious  and  avid  reader;  in  his  Re- 

3 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

ponse  a  I'enquete  de  M.  Binet  he  says :  "  In  my 
early  youth,  almost  at  the  time  I  began  to  read,  I 
felt  that  the  writing  of  books  was  an  enviable 
and  honorable  profession,  the  greatest  of  profes- 
sions." He  says  elsewhere  —  in  an  interview  — 
"  At  the  age  of  five  I  read  all  the  Robinsons  I 
could  get  hold  of:  Crusoe,  Swiss  Family,  etc.  I 
devoured  them  and  pondered  upon  them."  Not 
long  after,  he  "  devoured  "  the  classics  and  from 
time  to  time  made  modest  attempts  at  original  pro- 
duction, told  and  even  wrote  little  stories  for  the 
amusement  of  his  comrades.  His  scientific  stud- 
ies —  the  family  wished  him  to  become  an  engi- 
neer —  for  some  time  prevented  his  following  the 
literary  profession.  He  did  however  try  his  hand 
at  fiction  and  at  the  age  of  thirty-one  published 
his  first  novel,  L'Ete  des  fruits  sees,  which  was 
followed  by  Le  Sauvetage  du  Grand  due,  four 
years  later.  In  this  novel  Frangois  de  Curel 
gave  promise  of  considerable  talent  for  the  thea- 
ter, so  that  the  critic  Charles  Maurras  wrote  in 
exhortation :  "  Au  theatre !  Au  theatre,  M.  de 
Curel  I" 

One  of  Curel's  biographers  —  Roger  Le  Brun 
—  recounts  the  following  incident,  and  aptly  re- 
marks that  it  indicated  in  no  uncertain  manner 
the  "  dramatic  vocation  of  the  author."  "  A 
happy  opening  to  his  career  awaited  Curel  at  the 
very  outset.  Weary  of  calling  on  the  various 
theatrical  directors,  after  having  suffered  humilia- 
tions as  a  result  of  his  attempts  to  gain  the  good 
will  of  the  high  officials  appointed  by  the  govern- 
ment to  manage  the  Theatre  Frangais  and  the 
Odeon,  he  thought  of  Antoine  who  at  that  time 

4 


FRANgOIS  DE  CUREL 


(1891)  had  recently  founded  the  Theatre  Libre. 
Simultaneously,  Curel  sent  to  the  young  director, 
three  manuscripts,  under  three  different  names: 
L' Amour  brode,  L'Envers  d'une  sainte,  and  La 
Figurante.  As  soon  as  he  had  read  the  plays,  he 
wrote  complimenting  the  three  authors  —  and  im- 
mediately produced  L'Envers  d'une  sainte!  " 

This  play  is  typical  of  the  author's  methods 
and  choice  of  theme.  Its  origin  was  a  paragraph 
among  the  "  faits  divers  "  of  one  of  the  daily 
papers,  which  ran  somewhat  as  follows :  "  A 
woman  was  once  arrested  on  a  charge  of  murder. 
Great  influence  was  brought  to  bear  in  the  case, 
the  court  and  the  public  were  made  to  believe  in 
her  innocence;  she  was  defended  on  the  ground  of 
insanity.  The  supposed  maniac  was  thereupon 
sent  to  an  asylum,  where  she  remained  for  a  num- 
ber of  years.  One  day  she  contrived  to  escape, 
and  went  at  once  to  her  family."  From  this  sim- 
ple incident  Curel  took  the  broad  outlines,  and 
made  a  psychological  study  of  penetrating  depth. 
Julie  had,  nearly  nineteen  years  before  the  play 
opens,  attempted  to  kill  the  young  wife  of  the 
man  she  loved  (by  pushing  her  into  a  ravine)  ;  the 
injured  woman,  understanding  Julie's  attitude 
when  she  committed  the  deed,  does  not  divulge  the 
secret,  and  allows  those  concerned  to  believe  that 
her  "  fall  "  was  accidental.  Julie  then  goes  into  a 
convent.  The  man  for  whose  sake  she  attempted 
the  murder,  she  learns  one  day,  is  dead.  There 
is  nothing  now  in  the  way  of  her  returning  to  her 
mother  and  sister.  This  she  does.  At  this  point 
the  play  opens.  Curel  is  interested  and  chiefly 
concerned  in  a  close  analysis  of  Julie's  attitude  of 

5 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

mind.  Her  jealousy  of  Jeanne,  the  wife  who  has 
meantime  told  her  husband  of  Juhe's  crime,  Juhe's 
evil  influence  on  Christine,  Jeanne's  daughter,  and 
her  eventual  return  to  the  convent,  are  the  bare 
materials  with  which  Curel  constructs  his  play. 
The  struggle  between  one  individual  and  another, 
the  purely  intellectual  duel  between  two  women  for 
the  memory  of  a  man  both  had  loved,  the  auster- 
ity of  the  dialogue,  the  whole  atmosphere  of  im- 
pending doom,  are  reminiscent  of  Strindberg  and 
Ibsen.  And  yet  the  young  author  in  his  first  play 
was  in  no  sense  an  imitator:  he  had  simply,  with- 
out perhaps  being  aware,  assimilated  their  method 
of  treatment.  The  play  is  further  remarkable  in 
that  it  is  a  play  In  which  the  characters  are  women. 
I  should  mention  the  unimportant  Georges, 
Christine's  fiance,  but  he  is  purely  accessory,  and 
M.  de  Curel  once  told  me  that  when  he  re-writes 
the  play  he  will  omit  the  man. 

Curel's  preoccupation  with  the  abnormal  is  seen 
in  all  his  plays.  He  seeks  out  the  strange  occur- 
rences in  life,  shapes  the  facts  into  a  simple  story, 
and  then  proceeds  to  analyze  motives.  Situations 
are  for  him  only  excuses  for  soul  and  mind  analy- 
sis, otherwise  his  stories  would  be  merely  skillfully- 
contrived  melodramas.  L'Invitee,  the  third  of 
the  plays  in  order  of  production,  is  little  other  than 
a  variation  on  the  theme  of  the  first. 

Les  Fossiles  —  the  second  play  —  is  something 
of  a  departure.  Like  Henri  Lavedan's  Le  Prince 
d'Aurec,  it  is  concerned  with  the  French  aristocracy 
of  the  day,  only  it  is  a  family  tragedy,  not  a  satir- 
ical comedy.  Curel,  himself  a  noble,  knows  well 
his  class  and,  while  judging  its  ideals,  its  aspira- 

6 


FRANgOIS  DE  CUREL 


tions,  its  splendid  snobbery  and  true  nobility  of 
heart,  is  sufficiently  detached  as  an  artist  to  realize 
the  pathos  of  the  situation.  Since  the  founding 
of  France's  latest  Republic  the  nobility  has  been 
placed  in  a  difficult  position :  with  no  offices  to  fill 
under  an  administration  whose  principles  it  can- 
not accept,  looked  down  upon  as  a  class  by  the 
Republicans,  it  can  only  hold  high  its  head  and 
strive  to  preserve  its  traditions.  Curel  takes  an 
old  family,  the  de  Chantemelle,  assumed  to  be 
famous  in  the  annals  of  the  history  of  France,  and 
places  them  in  a  dilemma  whence  only  a  crime  can 
save  them.  Robert  de  Chantemelle,  the  young 
heir,  learns  that  he  has  but  a  few  months  to  live. 
As  he  is  about  to  leave  for  the  South,  he  confides 
to  his  mother  that  he  has  a  son,  by  his  mistress, 
who  was  until  recently  a  protegee  of  his  mother. 
The  Duke,  Robert's  father,  is  informed  of  this 
fact,  but  out  of  consideration  for  Robert  and  more 
especially  because  he  sees  a  way  of  perpetuating 
the  family  line,  he  does  not  tell  Robert  the  truth 
of  the  matter:  that  Helene  has  been  his  own  mis- 
tress as  well,  and  that  the  child  in  question  is  his 
own  son,  not  Robert's.  The  family  then  decides 
to  adopt  the  infant,  and  legitimize  him  by  allowing 
Robert  to  marry  Helene.  This  he  does,  but 
trouble  immediately  arises  from  the  fact  that  He- 
lene, fearful  lest  the  family  should  estrange  her 
from  her  son,  begs  to  be  allowed  to  take  the  child 
with  her  after  Robert's  death,  which  is  imminent. 
She  wishes  to  educate  him  in  her  own  way.  This 
precipitates  the  tragedy,  for  the  future  Duke  de 
Chantemelle  must  be  educated  as  such.  The 
Duke  then  reveals  the  truth  to  Robert,  declaring 

7 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

that  one  of  them  must  die.  As  Robert's  days  are 
numbered,  that  one  will  be  Robert.  Exposure  in 
a  cold  climate  means  sure  death  to  him,  so  that 
when  he  leaves  for  the  family  estate  in  the  Ar- 
dennes, his  fate  is  sealed.  The  last  act  takes 
place  at  Robert's  coffin,  just  before  the  interment. 
Robert's  will,  which  contains  his  last  wishes  for  the 
education  of  the  heir,  contains  the  essence  of  what 
the  "  fossil  "  nobility  has  to  say  of  its  dying  hopes : 

"  In  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost  I,  Robert  Charles-Henri  de  Chante- 
melle,  about  to  appear  before  God,  ask  forgive- 
ness of  my  family  for  all  the  evil  I  have  done 
them,  and  solemnly  swear  that  I  bear  in  my  heart 
not  the  slightest  trace  of  resentment  toward  any 
member  of  it.  I  wish  my  father  to  know  that  I 
perfectly  understood  and  sympathized  with  his 
great  grief  at  seeing  our  race  about  to  disappear. 
He  forgot  that  he  was  a  father  only  to  remember 
that  he  was  a  Duke.  He  was  able  to  lay  aside  the 
most  sacred  of  personal  feelings;  /  had  the 
strength  to  stifle  within  me  the  desire  for  ven- 
geance. And  what  vengeance !  I  thank  my  God 
for  taking  my  life  as  soon  as  possible.  That,  I 
hope,  is  the  seal  of  my  forgiveness. 

"  When  I  am  dead,  I  wish  the  following  things 
to  be  done: 

"...  Claire  [his  sister]  need  have  no  regrets 
in  my  regard.  Only  when  she  realized  that  I 
could  not  live  did  she  recognize  how  great  were  her 
responsibilities.  How  ready  she  is  to  expiate  her 
well-intentioned  crime,  committed  because  she  was 
too  jealous  of  the  glory  of  our  family! 

"  I  should  be  inconsiderate  if  I  myself  recorded 
8 


FRANgOIS  DE  CUREL 


what  she  has  promised  to  do.  I  leave  to  her  the 
task  of  explaining  in  what  way  and  to  how  great 
an  extent  she  means  to  devote  herself.  Claire  will 
represent  me  among  you.  I  place  Helene  and  the 
child  in  her  care.  Whatever  she  asks,  it  is  I  who 
command  it. 

"  I  ask  my  parents  to  give  to  Helene  the  Cha- 
teau des  Ecluses  in  Normandy.  She  has  promised 
me  to  go  there  and  consecrate  her  life  to  the  edu- 
cation of  her  son.  If  she  ever  allows  herself  to 
depart  in  the  least  detail  from  this  end,  she  may 
be  considered  to  have  perjured  herself.  The  oath 
she  made  to  me  I  had  a  right  to  demand  in  return 
for  my  forgiveness. 

"  As  soon  as  Henri  shall  have  arrived  at  the 
age  of  fifteen,  I  authorize  Helene  to  take  him  to 
Paris  in  order  that  he  may  enjoy  the  educational 
advantages  which  can  be  found  only  in  that  city. 
The  future  Duke  de  Chantemelle  must  be  educated 
with  the  idea  that  his  rank  is  not  an  excuse  to  dis- 
pense with  personal  merit.  Let  nothing  be  neg- 
lected in  making  him  a  modern  man,  in  the  deep- 
est significance  of  the  term.  Let  him  be  in  sym- 
pathy with  his  own  generation,  and  understand  its 
glory.  In  prolonging  our  hatred,  we  are  court- 
ing disaster;  our  feuds  were  legitimate  of  course 
when  the  blood  was  still  warm  which  had  been 
shed  in  the  Revolution;  but  these  feuds  now  only 
indicate  a  degenerate  tendency  and  selfish  egotism. 
The  Revolution  guillotined  our  grandparents  who 
were  at  first  so  warmly  partisan  of  her  cause,  but 
that  is  no  reason  why  we  should  make  of  that  a 
pretext  in  order  to  be  hostile  to  the  social  better- 
ment of  our  time.     Let  us  remain  true  to  our  tradi- 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

tlons  in  sacrificing  our  lives  by  generous  errors, 
thereby  establishing  it  as  a  fact  that  the  nobility  is 
a  school  of  disinterestedness,  pointing  out  the  way 
to  the  generation,  daring  of  thought,  fearless  of 
heart.  ...  It  seems  to  me  that  the  day  of  the 
aristocracy  is  past;  it  has  been  recruited  too  much 
from  the  moneyed  classes,  too  little  on  the  basis  of 
true  merit.  It  has  ever  been  closed  to  the  great 
men  who  have  sprung  from  the  people,  and  the 
people  have  reciprocated.  Before  it  finally  disap- 
pears, it  must  give,  by  means  of  a  pious  lie,  the 
same  impression  given  by  those  gigantic  fossils 
which  turn  our  minds  back  to  prehistoric  antiquity. 
"  Later,  when  the  heir  to  our  name  is  grown  to 
manhood,  I  demand  that  Claire  tell  him  the  man- 
ner of  my  death,  and  how  his  grandparents,  his 
aunt,  and  his  mother  have  sacrificed  themselves, 
in  order  that  he,  now  a  tiny  helpless  infant,  might 
preserve  in  honor  the  family  name.  He  will  un- 
derstand that  this  name,  transmitted  by  means  of 
a  terrible  crime,  should  be  borne  with  superhuman 
dignity.  Let  Claire  repeat  to  him  the  words  she 
spoke  to  me  not  many  days  ago :  '  Our  existence 
ends  with  yours,  but  what  of  it?  The  field  has 
been  searched  in  order  that  one  little  flower  may 
survive  I '  " 

Les  Fossiles  is  more  human,  more  balanced, 
more  "  popular,"  than  any  other  Curel  play;  there 
is  not  so  much  of  the  purely  abstract  as  in  L'En- 
vers  d'une  sainte  and  La  Danse  devant  le  Miroir, 
and  a  good  deal  more  action,  contrast,  color.  It 
is  a  picture  of  human  beings  as  well  as  an  analysis 
of  human  motives.  Depicting  as  it  does  the  trag- 
ic 


FRANgOIS  DE  CUREL 


edy  of  a  race,  the  agonies  of  a  dying  pride,  the 
struggle  between  ancestral  feeling  and  personal 
love  and  inclination,  it  is  one  of  the  noblest  works 
of  our  time. 

Curel's  attempts  at  comedy  have  been  unsuc- 
cessful. L' Amour  brode  and  La  Figurante  are 
marred  by  preciosity  of  style  and  uncertainty  of 
purpose.  The  author  seems  to  be  wrestling  with 
new  ideas.  The  next  important  play,  however, 
shows  in  no  uncertain  manner  that  he  was  once 
more  master  of  his  material.  Up  to  the  year 
1897,  he  had  been  concerned  largely  with  ques- 
tions relating  to  those  problems  which  torture  the 
individual  and  render  troublous  the  relation  of  one 
human  being  to  another.  In  Le  Repas  du  lion, 
he  widens  his  field.  He  asks  this  question:  what 
will  a  born  capitalist  do  when  his  sympathies  are 
on  the  side  of  labor,  but  when  influences  so  great 
are  brought  to  bear  that  he  must  fight  against 
the  side  which  he  believes  is  in  the  right?  The 
struggle  is  a  most  interesting  one,  and  would  have 
made  excellent  material  for  a  play,  but  Curel  has 
instead  entered  into  a  long  disputation  on  Christian 
Socialism,  thereby  retarding  the  action.  Le  Re- 
pas  du  lion  is  nearly  twice  the  length  of  L'Envers 
d'une  sainte,  and  yet  we  are  left  with  the  impres- 
sion that  less  is  accomplished  than  in  the  earlier 
play.  Curel  the  dramatist  forgot  that  too  much 
talk,  even  in  a  French  play,  will  eventually  ruin 
it.  A  careful  selection  of  the  significant  points  in 
the  story  he  originally  outlined  would  perhaps 
have  made  of  Le  Repas  du  lion  a  great  play;  it 
must,  however,  be  accounted  as  one  of  his  least 
successful  works. 

II 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 


The  next  play,  La  Nouvelle  idole,  is  much  bet- 
ter. This  is  another  "  case  of  conscience."  A 
doctor,  Albert  Donnat,  who  is  so  bound  up  in  his 
profession  that  he  loses  sight  of  the  ultimate  pur- 
pose of  science,  is  suddenly  brought  to  a  realization 
of  the  fact  that  all  his  knowledge  will  not  benefit 
humanity  as  effectively  as  the  blind  unquestioning 
faith  of  his  little  victim.  Should  one  human  be- 
ing be  sacrificed  to  scientific  research  in  order  that 
others  may  be  saved?  That  is  this  doctor's  di- 
lemma. Donnat  is  experimenting  with  cancer  on 
a  young  consumptive  girl  who  is  apparently  with- 
out hope;  suddenly  she  is  cured,  but  has  meanwhile 
been  inoculated  with  the  deadly  cancer  vaccine. 
Then  comes  the  awful  revelation.  But  —  and 
here  Curel  the  idealist  steps  in  —  both  the  girl  and 
the  doctor  have  grown  spiritually  and  morally  by 
the  tragedy,  although  both  are  condemned  to 
death :  for  the  doctor  himself  has  been  inoculated. 
Louise,  Donnat's  wife,  had  for  some  time  past, 
found  her  husband  impossible  to  live  with,  and  had 
determined  to  leave  him,  but  she  is  finally  recon- 
ciled. She  too  has  learned  something  of  the  hero- 
ism of  scientists  and  the  faith  of  their  victims. 

Albert.  I  do  not  believe  in  God,  but  I  die  as  if  I 
did :  that  thought  gives  me  peace.  My  great  power  comes 
from  the  fact  that  I  am  understood  by  that  little  saint  who 
is  dying  at  my  side.  I  feel  that  there  is  a  mysterious  bond 
between  us.  Her  faith  is  my  faith.  My  salvation  is 
having  her  take  my  hand  and  guide  me  toward  some  sort 
of  great  splendor,  what,  I  do  not  know.  You  see,  I  have 
decided  to  think  and  act  like  a  great  man,  as  any  brave 
man  would.  It  may  be  illogical,  but  will  the^e  ever  come 
a  day  when  one  can  arrive  at  the  heights  of  greatness 

12 


FRANgOIS  DE  CUREL 


merely  by  acting  according  to  one's  intelligence  ?  For  the 
time  being,  the  intelligence  has  its  own  logic,  and  the  spirit 
something  that  I  cannot  understand,  but  that  Antoinette 
would  be  able  to  define  in  a  second.  .  .  .  Yes,  when  the 
time  comes  for  a  human  being  to  die  in  a  different  manner 
from  that  of  a  dog,  die  nobly,  then  we  must  look  to  the 
humble  who  adore  God,  to  those  burning  hearts  that  love 
with  your  heroism.  That  is  where  the  philosophers  should 
learn  their  lessons  in  logic. 

Louise.  [Falling  into  his  arms.'\  What,  have  you 
really  learned  something  from  us?  Albert,  then  I  can 
live  with  you,  and  enjoy  that  communion  I  have  always 
dreamed  of?     Now  there  is  no  barrier  between  us! 

Albert.  [Freeing  himself. 1  No  barrier?  [Indicat- 
ing the  place  on  his  chest  where  he  has  been  inoculated.^ 
You  have  forgotten  .  .  .! 

And  the  curtain  falls.     Here  again  is  true  tragedy. 

La  Nouvelle  idole,  like  the  rest  of  its  author's 
plays,  was  never  very  successful,  although  during 
the  spring  and  summer  of  19 14  it  was  revived  for 
a  number  of  times  at  the  Comedie  Frangaise. 
Curel  enjoys  *'  succes  d'estime  "  for  thirty  or  forty 
performances,  but  he  has  never  had  a  long  run. 
Admired,  respected,  almost  idolized  by  his  con- 
freres and  by  the  press,  he  must  be  accounted  the 
Dramatists'  Dramatist.  Since  La  Nouvelle  idole, 
Curel  has  written  but  three  plays :  La  Fille  sau- 
vage,  in  1902,  Le  Coup  d'aile,  in  1906,  and  La 
Danse  devant  le  miroir,  in  19 14. 

La  Fille  sauvage  is  another  very  curious  study 
in  abnormal  psychology.  A  savage  girl,  only  a 
trifle  above  the  state  of  a  female  beast,  has  been 
captured  in  a  distant  kingdom  of  Africa.  A 
Frenchman,  who  is  attracted  by  the  creature,  is 

13 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

granted  permission  by  the  king  to  take  the  fille 
sauvage  to  France  and  try  to  raise  it  a  few  rungs 
in  the  ladder  of  civihzation.  Through  six  long 
acts  we  assist  at  the  metamorphosis  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  young  girl,  who  becomes  at  last  to  all 
appearances  a  cultivated  and  attractive  young 
Frenchwoman,  and  ends  by  returning  to  Africa, 
broken-hearted  as  a  result  of  her  falling  in  love 
with  her  protector.  The  play  holds  the  attention 
of  the  audience  mainly  by  reason  of  its  bizarrerie. 
The  strange  story,  the  mingled  intellectual  and 
emotional  appeal,  the  suspense  aroused  by  wonder- 
ing what  will  happen  next,  constitute  its  chief  qual- 
ities. Without  doubt,  Curel  wished  to  compare 
the  civilization  of  Europe  with  that  of  the  savages, 
but  he  became  too  absorbed  in  the  purely  adven- 
turous side  of  his  story,  and  in  so  doing,  produced 
a  work  so  confusing  that  it  fails  to  convince.  It 
cannot  be  considered  much  more  than  a  curious 
melodrama. 

In  Le  Coup  d'aile  Curel  wished  to  tell  about  the 
psychology  of  glory,  but  he  made  the  fundamental 
error  of  associating  true  glory  with  La  Patrie. 
This  error,  he  once  confessed  to  me,  became  evi- 
dent when  the  play  was  first  produced.  He  then 
recounted  the  following  incident:  a  friend  once 
asked  of  a  class  of  young  students,  "  What  is 
glory?"  and  received  the  unanimous  answer, 
"The  flag  and  the  Patrie!"  "In  Le  Coup 
d'aile '*  continued  M.  de  Curel,  "  I  took  the  flag 
merely  as  a  symbol  of  glory,  not  as  the  living  in- 
carnation of  it,  and  when  my  hero  insulted  it,  he 
became  immediately  unsympathetic.  That  was  not 
what  I  wanted.     Had  I  heard  that  answer  from 

14 


FRANgOIS  DE  CUREL 


the  school  children,  I  should  not  have  written  the 
play  as  I  did."  Yet,  in  spite  of  its  spiritual  mis- 
carriage, the  play  contains  a  splendid  portrayal  in 
the  character  of  the  chief  personage. 

After  Le  Coup  d'aile  followed  a  period  of 
nearly  nine  years'  inactivity.  When,  in  the  fall  of 
1913  a  new  play  by  Frangois  de  Curel  was  an- 
nounced, with  Madame  Simone  as  the  principal 
interpreter,  it  seemed  as  if  a  voice  from  the  past 
were  heard. 

The  press  was  practically  unanimous  in  its 
praise  of  La  Danse  devant  le  miroir,  when  it  was 
produced  at  the  Nouvel-Ambigu  in  January,  19 14. 
Yet  once  more  the  play  enjoyed  only  a  very  short 
run.  In  many  ways,  this  work  is  the  most  subtle 
and  complex  of  all;  that  is  doubtless  the  reason 
for  its  failure.  The  idea,  expressed  by  Paul- 
Adrien  Schaye,  in  an  interview  with  the  author,  is 
this :  "  The  author  has  wished  to  symbolize  the 
solitude  in  which  the  lover  finds  himself  before  the 
woman  he  loves.  He  believes  he  sees  her  as  she 
is,  yet  he  sees  only  what  she  seeks  to  be  for  him. 
She  has  understood  the  ideal  which  he  seeks  in  her; 
while  she  loves  him  passionately,  and  strives  to 
resemble  that  ideal  of  his,  in  order  to  make  herself 
more  acceptable  in  his  eyes.  She  casts  aside  her 
true  personality,  and  seeks  to  assume  that  which 
he  wants.  She  plays  a  comedy,  and  acts  a  pious 
lie.  That  is  the  woman's  role.  And  the  man 
thinks  in  the  same  way,  because  he  loves  her,  and 
believes  that  his  passion  should  be  shared  equally 
with  his  partner.  He  too  knows  what  she  wishes 
him  to  be,  and  loses  no  time  in  appearing  as  such; 
he  masks  himself  in  order  to  be  more  acceptable  to 

15 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

her.  So  well  is  this  all  accomplished,  that  each  of 
the  lovers  possesses  only  a  reflection  of  the  other's 
desire,  an  appearance,  not  a  reality."  Upon  this 
abstraction  has  the  author  built  a  tense  and  moving 
play.  Regine  "  imagines  that  love  can  be  trifled 
with;  she  wishes  to  prove  the  strength  of  her 
lover's  affection.  She  wants  to  know  whether 
Paul  is  a  hero.  Will  he,  she  asks,  sacrifice  even 
his  honor  for  her?  She  allows  him  to  believe  that 
she  has  been  seduced,  that  he  ought  to  save  her 
by  marrying  her,  for  she  is  expecting  a  child.  But 
Paul  has  been  told  by  a  friend  of  Regine  that  this 
is  a  lie,  yet  he  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  ap- 
pear in  a  heroic  light,  so  that  the  two  lovers,  wish- 
ing all  the  time  to  see  one  another  as  they  really 
are,  play  a  dangerous  comedy,  which  results  in 
a  tragedy.  The  night  of  their  wedding  they 
want  to  clear  up  all  the  deceptions  of  the  past. 
.  .  .  Yet  each  is  condemned  to  solitude :  the  ob- 
ject of  one's  affection  remains  merely  a  mirror 
which  reflects  one's  own  image,  distorted  and  fals- 
ified. During  a  lucid  interval,  Paul  sees  that  the 
only  way  he  can  leave  a  magnificent  and  worthy 
memory  of  himself  is  to  commit  suicide,  and  this 
he  does."  The  exceedingly  diflicult  task  of  mak- 
ing this  story  real  was  marvelously  accomplished. 
Whether  we  accept  or  reject  Curel's  hypothesis, 
if  we  find  it  hard  to  believe  in  the  characters  or  the 
situation,  we  cannot  deny  that  he  has  done  his 
work  with  the  greatest  skill  and  insight.  As  a 
technical  accomplishment,  nothing  in  recent  years 
has  been  seen  in  France  comparable  with  it. 

The  French  have  always  been  largely  preoccu- 
pied with  sex  as  subject-matter  for  their  plays, 

i6 


FRANgOIS  DE  CUREL 


especially  during  the  past  quarter  century.  Fran- 
gois  de  Curel,  one  of  the  most  original  and  high- 
minded  men  of  the  time,  has  had  the  courage  to 
seek  in  other  fields  for  the  material  which  he  has 
turned  to  such  noble  use.  If  he  has  not  been  suc- 
cessful, it  is  largely  because  he  has  left  to  others 
the  facile  exploitation  of  sex  for  its  own  sake,  and 
applied  his  genius  to  the  unraveling  of  intellectual 
problems.  He  will  stand  out  in  the  history  of  the 
period  as  a  man  of  genius  with  the  courage  of  his 
convictions. 


17 


EUGENE  BRIEUX 

Eugene  Brieux  —  or  Brieux,  as  he  prefers  to 
be  known  —  won  his  international  reputation  over- 
night, as  it  were,  partly  as  the  result  of  the  some- 
what extreme  praise  of  Bernard  Shaw  in  the  pref- 
ace to  the  Three  Plays  by  Brieux.  Those  particu- 
lar works  of  the  French  dramatist  which  the  Irish- 
man chose  to  introduce  to  the  English-reading  pub- 
lic were  written  primarily  to  arouse  and  shock  the 
public  of  the  day,  and  are  in  all  likelihood  not 
those  by  which  Brieux  will  be  longest  remembered. 
Shaw  is  a  self-confessed  social-worker,  interested 
in  plays  and  literature  by  reason  of  their  social 
import,  and  it  was  but  natural  that  he  should  be 
attracted  to  such  plays  as  Damaged  Goods,  The 
Three  Daughters  of  M.  Dupont,  and  Maternity. 

In  France,  however,  Brieux  was  for  a  number  of 
years  referred  to  as  the  "  author  of  Blanchette," 
and  in  my  opinion,  if  he  takes  rank  eventually  — 
as  it  seems  probable  he  will  —  among  the  first 
dramatists  of  his  generation,  those  works  so  highly 
lauded  by  Shaw  will  be  forgotten,  and  Blanchette 
and  its  more  human  companions  will  remain  true 
specimens  of  his  art.  Damaged  Goods  is  after  all 
of  purely  educative  value,  much  of  its  purpose  has 
been  accomplished:  it  broke  the  "conspiracy  of 
silence."  Maternity  has  at  least  served  to  call 
attention  to  the  fundamental  defect  in  the  current 
French  concept  of  motherhood.     A  more  general 

i8 


EUGENE  BRIEUX 


problem,  and  one  which  will  be  in  existence  longer 
than  the  problems  treated  in  Damaged  Goods  and 
Maternity  is  that  which  serves  as  the  basis  of 
Blanchette.  For  centuries  children,  better  edu- 
cated than  their  parents,  will  feel  the  gulf  separat- 
ing them  from  those  who  sacrificed  in  order  to 
give  them  the  means  of  educating  themselves. 
The  Red  Robe,  while  it  attacks  a  definite  defect  in 
the  legal  system  of  the  day,  is  so  distinctly  human, 
that  when  the  defect  disappears,  the  play  will  re- 
main; the  Law  is  destined  to  remain  a  very  im- 
perfect institution,  and  authority  in  human  hands 
will  never  quite  be  tempered  with  mercy. 

My  first  impression  of  Brieux,  as  he  sat  before 
a  cafe  in  the  Rue  Royale,  was  a  vivid  one:  a 
heartily  robust,  modest  yet  assertive  man  of 
middle  age,  ruddy,  almost  insolently  healthy, 
Dressed  in  a  common  blue  serge  suit,  wearing  a 
"  Derby  "  hat,  smoking  a  cigarette,  and  sipping 
a  coffee,  he  reminded  me  of  an  Englishman  or  an 
American,  playing  the  role  of  a  Parisian. 
Slightly  above  medium  height,  rather  thick-set, 
with  a  fine,  open,  clean-shaven  face,  short,  curly 
grayish  hair,  sparkling  blue  eyes,  upon  closer  in- 
spection he  presented  the  appearance  of  a  French 
peasant  who  had  however  lived  long  enough  in 
Paris  to  acquire  a  fair  amount  of  metropolitan 
"  polish."  Genial,  communicative,  at  times  rather 
satirical,  he  strikes  one  as  a  self-made  titan,  a 
cosmopolitan  man  of  the  world,  yet  withal  essen- 
tially French. 

Brieux  is  among  his  contemporaries  one  of  the 
broadest  and  least  prejudiced  of  men.  It  is  dif- 
ficult to  imagine  Maurice  Donnay  in  London,  there 

19 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

is  something  almost  ridiculous  in  the  effort  to  pic- 
ture Alfred  Capus  trying  to  acclimatize  himself  to 
Berlin,  or  Anatole  France  delivering  a  course  of 
lectures  in  Chicago,  but  Brieux  somehow  looks  as 
if  he  had  traveled  far  and  he  has:  in  neighboring 
European  countries  as  well  as  in  the  Far  East,  and 
it  is  far  from  incongruous  to  imagine  his  undertak- 
ing what  he  has  often  contemplated :  an  American 
tour.  Brieux's  cosmopolitanism  is  in  his  charac- 
ter, and  the  success  of  Damaged  Goods  in  Amer- 
ica and  Germany  is  due  to  something  beyond  its 
novelty  of  theme. 

Brieux  is  ready  and  able  to  discuss  any  number 
of  modern  "  live  "  topics  —  social  or  literary.  I 
have  often  sounded  him  on  American  and  English 
politics  and  literature,  and  found  him  up-to-date, 
well-informed,  interested. 

As  to  his  private  life,  Brieux  is  modestly  silent; 
interviewers  avid  of  details  and  anecdotes  are 
gently  sent  away.  "  I  was  born,"  he  once  told 
me,  "in  1858,  but  of  what  possible  interest  can 
that  be?  "  It  is  perhaps  of  more  interest  to  us 
than  to  him,  yet  in  this  place  we  shall  have  to  be 
content  with  the  briefest  outline  of  a  biography, 
pieced  together  from  two  or  three  monographs  and 
a  few  facts  gleaned  from  conversations. 

He  was  born  in  Paris  fifty-six  years  ago.  His 
father  was  a  carpenter.  He  attended  school  up  to 
the  age  of  fifteen,  when  he  was  forced  to  go  to 
work.  He  was  an  early  and  ardent  reader  of 
the  classics:  French,  German,  and  Latin.  Latin 
he  taught  himself,  by  the  way.  Before  his  twen- 
tieth year  he  had  made  attempts  to  write  plays  — 
in  verse  —  and  in  his  twenty-second  year  he  wrote 

20 


EUGENE  BRIEUX 


a  one-act  verse  play  on  a  historical  subject  in  col- 
laboration with  Gaston  Salandri,  called  Bernard 
Palissy.  This  was  performed  at  the  Theatre 
Cluny.  Giving  up  his  position  he  turned  to  news- 
paper work,  in  which  he  remained  for  seven  years. 
At  Rouen  he  was  editor  of  La  Nouvelliste. 
"  The  importance  of  his  long  residence  in  Rouen," 
says  P.  V.  Thomas,  the  author  of  a  short  mono- 
graph on  Brieux,  "  can  hardly  be  overestimated; 
not  only  did  he  thus  escape  being  caught  up  In  any 
of  the  literary  fads  and  fancies  of  the  boulevards, 
but  also  he  was  better  able.  In  a  comparatively 
small  center,  such  as  Rouen,  to  grasp  life  as  a 
whole  than  amid  the  complexities  of  the  metropo- 
lis. At  Rouen  he  learnt  as  editor  to  face  questions 
of  public  interest.  Here  he  acquired  his  experi- 
ence of  men  and  affairs.  The  knowledge  of  pro- 
vincial life  thus  acquired  was  to  stand  him  In  good 
stead.  Without  his  sojourn  In  Rouen,  he  would 
never  have  written  L'Engrenage  or  Bianchette." 
No,  nor  Maternity,  nor  The  Philanthropists,  nor 
The  Substitutes,  The  Frenchwoman,  nor  The 
Bourgeois  in  the  Country. 

That  a  son  of  Paris  should  leave  his  native  city 
and  study  the  people  of  the  provinces,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  was  a  rare  blessing.  Brieux  was 
never  a  faddist  nor  a  Parisian;  he  Is  French,  In 
the  sense  that  Emile  Augler  was  French,  and  Bal- 
zac and  Henry  Becque,  and  therein  lies  his  greatest 
power.  He  leaves  to  Capus  and  Donnay  and 
Porto-RIche  the  task  of  painting  the  manners  of 
the  French  capital  and  analyzing  the  Parlslenne, 
and  goes  direct  to  the  peasants, — "  La  France  qui 
travallle,  La  France  qui  prie." 

21 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Andre  Antoine  discovered  Brieux.  In  an 
earlier  paper  it  is  told  how  the  young  journalist 
sent  the  manuscript  of  Menages  d' artistes  to  the 
director  of  the  Theatre  Libre,  how,  two  years 
later,  Blanchette  was  produced,  and  how  Brieux 
found  himself  as  a  dramatist. 

Brieux's  plays  have  been  well  summed  up  in 
three  or  four  brief  studies,^  so  that  there  is  little 
need  of  repeating  what  is  so  near  at  hand.  Suffice 
it  to  remark  that  the  total  dramatic  output  con- 
stitutes a  most  valuable  and  interesting  set  of  so- 
cial documents,  that  Blanchette  is  an  attack  upon 
certain  aspects  of  the  educational  system,  M.  de 
Reboval  and  La  Couvee  a  protest  against  the 
menage  a  trois  and  the  marriage  laws,  L'Engren- 
age  against  political  abuses,  hes  Bienfaiteurs 
against  indiscriminate  charity,  L'Evasion  against 
the  abuse  of  science  and  medicine,  Les  Trois  filles 
de  M.  Dupont  against  certain  aspects  of  the  mar- 
riage question,  Resultat  des  courses  against  gam- 
bling in  the  working  classes,  Le  Berceau  against 
divorce.  La  Robe  rouge  against  the  abuse  of  the 
law  and  the  system  of  promotion,  Les  Remplacan- 
tes  against  the  recruiting  of  wet-nurses,  Les 
A  varies  against  the  conspiracy  of  silence  regard- 
ing the  nature  and  treatment  of  venereal  diseases. 
La  Petite  Amie  treats  of  the  marriage  laws  and 
the  relation  between  parents  and  children  again, 
Maternite  and  La  Deserteuse  are  concerned  with 
motherhood  and  marriage;  Les  Hannetons  treats 
of  "  free  love  ";  La  Francaise  is  a  vindication  of 

iP.  V.  Thomas,  Eugene  Brieux,  The  Man  and  His  Plays; 
and  prefaces  to  Three  Plays  by  Brieux,  and  Blanchette  and 
The  Escape. 

22 


EUGENE  BRIEUX 


the  French  woman  and  family;  Simone  and  Suzette 
are  pleas  for  the  child  of  divorced  parents;  La 
Foi  questions  the  validity  of  accepted  faith  in  re- 
ligion ;  La  Femme  seule  is  a  document  showing  the 
essential  economic  dependence  of  woman  in 
France;  Le  Bourgeois  aux  champs  is  a  satire  on 
the  futility  of  immediate  reform. 

As  a  man  interested  and  deeply  concerned  for 
the  welfare  of  mankind,  Brieux  is  a  brave  and  oc- 
casionally inspired  dramatist.  In  Les  Avaries 
and  three  or  four  other  vigorous  and  pointedly  di- 
dactic plays,  he  has  honestly  and  nobly  done  his 
best  to  open  the  eyes  of  his  people  to  evils  which 
ought  to  and  can  be  remedied.  Les  Avaries  tells 
certain  unpleasant  but  necessary  truths ;  Maternite 
urges  those  who  are  attempting  to  remedy  the  evil 
of  depopulation  in  France  that  they  must  first  of 
all  respect  motherhood  per  se,  and  protect  all 
mothers,  whether  they  be  within  or  without  the 
marriage  bond.  The  fact  that  these  truths  had 
to  be  spoken  was  undoubtedly  detrimental  to  the 
plays  as  works  of  art;  Brieux  therefore  sacrificed 
the  artist  in  himself  for  the  good  of  the  race.  But 
fortunately  he  at  times  combined  his  artistry  with 
his  ardor  as  a  reformer,  and  produced  works  which 
will  last  after  his  suggested  reforms  are  no  longer 
of  use.  If  we  consider  each  play,  we  find  that 
those  in  which  something  is  assumed  as  being  ba- 
sically wrong,  tacitly,  by  most  thinking  people,  are 
invariably  better  than  those  in  which  the  dramatist 
was  forced  to  break  the  silence.  That  is  to  say, 
Brieux  the  innovator  tended  to  lose  his  artistic 
consciousness  in  proportion  to  the  novelty  of  the 
theme  treated.     In  Blanchette  and  La  Robe  rouge ^ 

23 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

for  example,  he  was  able  to  take  certain  things  for 
granted  and  proceed  to  write  a  highly  effective 
play;  in  Les  Avaries  he  must  perforce  proceed 
with  greater  care,  and  explain  at  length  certain 
points  which,  if  his  thesis  were  taken  for  granted 
and  were  universally  known  and  accepted,  might 
well  be  omitted.  If  this  play  were  to  be  presented 
exclusively  before  audiences  of  physicians,  much 
could  be  cut,  and  the  play  be  infinitely  better.  His 
achievement  then  must  be  honored  as  an  act  of 
courage  (that  goes  without  saying)  and  not  —  in 
spite  of  a  few  stirring  and  truly  dramatic  scenes 
—  as  drama. 

Brieux's  conscience  stands  in  the  way  of  his  be- 
ing a  great  dramatist;  his  significance  will  be  real- 
ized just  as  Bernard  Shaw's  will  be  realized,  by 
reason  of  particular  scenes  and  particular  plays, 
which  are  good  in  spite  of  their  social  purposeful- 
ness.  Like  his  literary  forebear  Emile  Augier, 
Brieux  will  be  remembered  as  a  painter  of  charac- 
ter long  after  his  topical  plays  have  ceased  to  in- 
terest. Augier's  Le  Fils  de  Giboyer  and  Le 
Manage  d'Olympe  are  still  Interesting  because  of 
their  characters,  not  because  they  treat  of  "  Anti- 
clerical "  politics  or  the  "  Reign  of  the  Courte- 
san." When  or  if  the  particular  legal  abuses  at- 
tacked In  La  Robe  rouge  are  remedied  and  the 
system  of  finding  places  for  school  teachers  so 
severely  criticized  in  Blanchette  is  modified,  these 
plays  will  remain,  because  they  tell  good  stories 
and  paint  real  and  living  people. 

What  Brieux  would  have  been  had  his  social 
conscience  not  been  so   highly  developed  is   of 

24 


EUGENE  BRIEUX 


course  impossible  to  determine ;  perhaps  he  would 
not  have  had  recourse  to  the  theater  as  a  medium 
of  expression  for  his  ideas.  We  must  therefore 
be  content  to  accept  his  work  as  it  stands.  A  most 
hopeful  sign  lies  in  the  fact  that  his  latest  play  is 
in  the  vein  of  highest  comedy;  Le  Bourgeois  aux 
champs  was  written  not  so  much  to  demonstrate 
the  uselessness  of  ignorant  though  well-intentioned 
reform  as  to  draw  the  picture  of  a  modern  bour- 
geois. Let  us  hope  that  Brieux  has  realized  that 
his  greatest  function  lies  in  his  good  plays,  not  in 
his  attempts,  however  sincere  and  intelligent,  to 
remedy  evils  which  can  scarcely  be  remedied 
through  the  agency  of  the  drama. 

Blanchette,  La  Robe  rouge,  La  Femme  seule, 
Le  Bourgeois  aux  champs,  Les  Trois  filles  de  M. 
Dupont,  and  Resultat  des  courses!  are  the  plays 
which  in  my  opinion  contain  as  wholes  or  in  part 
the  best  that  Brieux  has  to  offer.  Certain  it  is 
that  in  other  plays  —  notably  in  Le  Berceau,  Les 
Remplaqantes,  and  Maternite  —  occur  scenes  and 
passages  comparable  with  and  in  some  instances 
superior  to  the  best  in  Resultat  des  courses!.  La 
Femme  seule,  and  Les  Trois  filles  de  M.  Dupont, 
but  I  believe  that  the  six  plays  I  have  selected  will 
stand  the  test  of  time. 

La  Robe  rouge  is  the  best  of  these.  It  Is  a 
play  "  with  a  purpose  "  :  it  is  intended  to  point  out, 
to  the  end  of  remedying,  the  fearful  abuse  of  legal 
power.  In  order  to  obtain  an  "  advance,"  a 
French  criminal  lawyer  must  convict,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  number  of  years  of  convictions  he  re- 
ports to  headquarters  are  his  chances  of  advance 
bettered  or  destroyed.     The  universality  of  the 

25. 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

play  lies  not  so  much  in  the  fact  that  a  certain 
lawyer  misused  his  power,  ruining  the  family  and 
happiness  of  a  Basque  peasant,  but  that  every  one 
who  is  invested  with  authority  tends  to  misuse  that 
authority  to  the  detriment  of  mankind.  Brieux 
is  an  anarchist  in  that  he  believes  that  no  man  is 
good  enough  to  sit  in  judgment  over  his  fellow- 
beings.  La  Robe  rouge  must  surely  first  have 
occurred  to  its  author  as  an  intensely  dramatic  situ- 
ation, then  he  must  have  made  the  direct  applica- 
tion. If  this  was  not  the  method,  then  Brieux 
must  be  accounted  the  thesis-dramatist  par  excel- 
lence. So  well  does  he  make  us  forget  the  theme 
in  the  story  and  characters  that  we  are  not  aware 
of  being  instructed.  It  seems  that  Brieux  worked 
so  vigorously  and  sincerely  that  he  forgot  to  in- 
terpolate such  scenes  of  cut-and-dried  though  ad- 
mirable logic  which  go  far  to  mar  plays  like  Les 
Avaries.  Few  plays  can  boast  so  tense,  so  in- 
evitable, so  crushing  a  climax.  Beginning  in  the 
expository  first  act,  developing  pitilessly  through 
the  second,  pausing  a  moment  in  the  third,  it  finally 
rushes  with  vertiginous  haste  to  the  terrible  mur- 
der-scene, which  closes  the  play.  The  dramatist 
forgets  the  rules  of  the  well-made  play,  proceeds 
developing  where  Scribe  would  have  offered  a 
denouement;  he  combines  climax  with  catastrophe, 
and  leaves  us  gasping.  The  execution  of  Mouzon 
by  the  woman  whose  happiness  he  has  ruined  does 
not  only  seem  natural  and  inevitable,  it  creates  a 
feeling  in  the  breast  of  the  spectator  of  personal 
hatred,  so  that  when  Yanetta  plants  the  knife  in 
the  lawyer's  back  the  audience  invariably  puts  it- 
self in  the  woman's  position,  and  exults.     The  ten 

26 


EUGENE  BRIEUX 


or  fifteen  minutes'  applause  which  often  follows 
the  close  of  the  play  is  rather  an  indication  of  this 
personal  attitude  on  the  part  of  the  audience  than 
a  particular  expression  of  pleasure  or  interest. 

As  Blanchette  and  Les  Trots  filles  de  M.  Du- 
pont  are  accessible  to  English  readers,  and  are  al- 
ready well  known,  there  is  no  necessity  to  enter  into 
detail.  The  first  of  these  plays  is  notable  among 
other  things  for  its  true  characterization  of  old 
Pere  Rousset  and  his  wife;  here  are  average  peas- 
ants, not  stock  comedy  figures.  Brieux's  play 
came  at  a  time  when  Zola's  grotesque  peasants 
stood  for  what  is  most  exaggerated  in  ultra- 
Naturalistic  literature.  Brieux  was  sufficiently  in- 
dependent and  clear-sighted  to  draw  men  and 
women  whom  he  knew  as  living  beings,  not  as  ani- 
mals. Pere  Rousset  behaves  and  speaks  at  times 
(in  the  stage  version  and  the  printed  book,  which 
has  been  in  places  toned  down  in  the  translation) 
in  a  most  realistic  and  disgusting  manner,  but  he 
is  good  at  heart,  and  his  indignation  justifiable. 
Blanchette  herself  seems  a  trifle  stiff,  but  perhaps 
that  is  what  the  author  intended,  or  possibly  he 
felt  the  need  of  exaggerating  the  antagonism  be- 
tween parent  and  child,  for  dramatic  purposes. 
Whatever  the  technical  faults  of  the  play,  what- 
ever its  other  shortcomings,  it  stands  in  much  the 
same  relation  with  the  modern  French  drama  that 
Balzac's  Scenes  de  la  vie  de  province  did  to  the 
literature  of  his  day. 

Again,  the  particular  scenes  in  which  the  char- 
acters are  allowed  to  develop,  constitute  the  chief 
value  of  Les  Trois  filles  de  M.  Dupont.  That 
scene  in  which  the  Mairauts  and  the  Duponts  ar- 

27 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

range  for  their  children's  union,  in  the  first  act, 
seems  to  justify  Shaw's  statement  that  *'  in  that 
great  comedy  which  Balzac  calls  the  '  comedy  of 
humanity,'  to  be  played  for  the  amusement  of  the 
gods  rather  than  that  of  the  French  public,  there 
is  no  summit  in  the  barren  plain  that  stretches 
from  Mount  Moliere  to  our  times  until  we  reach 
Brieux."  This  play  may  suffer  from  a  too  great 
rigidity  of  structure;  there  is  in  the  last  act  what 
Jules  Lemaitre  called  too  much  the  appearance  of 
a  "  Q.E.D.,"  but  when  we  are  offered  such  types 
as  Dupont  and  Mairaut  and  scenes  of  the  kind 
I  have  referred  to,  we  cannot  quarrel  with  the 
author. 

Resultat  des  courses!,  while  it  is  a  "  purpose  " 
play,  is  interesting  and  valuable  as  a  picture  of  the 
artisan  classes  of  Paris,  among  which  Brieux  is 
perfectly  at  home.  When  he  planned  this  play, 
he  went  among  them  to  get  his  local  color.  An 
amusing  incident  is  recounted  by  Adolphe  Bris- 
son  in  his  volume,  Les  Prophetes: 

When  the  time  came  for  the  afternoon  "  appetizer  "  he 
accompanied  his  companions  to  the  bar.  He  then  stood 
upon  a  table: 

"  My  friends,"  he  said,  "  I  have  deceived  you;  I'm  not 
a  chiseler,  I'm  a  dramatist.  My  name  is  Eugene  Brieux; 
I've  had  plays  produced  which  you've  probably  heard  of  — 
Les  Bienfaiteurs,  Les  Trois  filles  de  M.  Dupont,  and 
Blanchette." 

An  assistant  who  was  something  of  a  literary  fellow 
murmured :     "  Lord !     Do  we  know  Blanchette!  " 

"  You  will  invite  us  to  your  premiere,  won't  you  ?  " 

"You'll  be  there— " 

When  the  curtain  rose  at  the  repetition  generale  the 

28 


EUGENE  BRIEUX 


entire  work-shop  was  present;  it  was  before  this  sympa- 
thetic and  excited  audience  that  the  drama  unfolded.  .  .  . 
"  That  evening,"  said  Brieux,  "  I  was  positively  intoxicated 
with  pleasure.  It  moved  me  as  I  have  never  been  moved 
before.  I  love  my  chiselers  better  than  I  do  the  abonnes  of 
the  Comedie  Frangaise." 

The  plot  is  simple :  Arsene  Chantaud  (played, 
it  is  related,  with  deep  insight  and  remarkable 
sincerity  by  Antoine),  one  of  the  chiselers  in  a 
bronze-shop  in  Paris,  hks  won  a  considerable  sum 
of  money  from  the  races.  Not  content  with  this, 
he  continues  to  bet,  and  eventually  loses  money  be- 
longing to  his  employer.  The  employer  allows 
him  to  go  after  he  has  signed  a  confession;  but 
due  to  the  fact  that  he  is  without  the  necessary 
credentials,  he  can  find  no  employment  elsewhere. 
Things  go  from  bad  to  worse :  the  family  is  turned 
out  of  house  and  home;  and  one  day  Chantaud, 
now  totally  demoralized,  is  arrested  as  a  vagrant. 
His  son,  however,  has  meantime,  by  dint  of  hard 
labor  reestablished  the  family  fortunes,  and  brings 
his  ruined  father  back,  a  hopeless  wreck.  This 
simple  story,  with  its  equally  simple  moral,  is  told 
with  "  sufficient  candor  not  to  fear  what  is  banal, 
and  sufficient  talent  not  to  write  it,"  in  Lemaitre's 
words.  Here  again  it  is  the  characters,  the  milieu, 
the  loving  care  with  which  the  whole  environment 
is  sketched,  which  recommend  themselves  to  us. 
Result  at  des  courses!  is  not  a  very  significant  play, 
but  it  is  a  sympathetic  picture  of  life. 

It  is  a  convenient  if  at  times  rather  arbitrary 
procedure  to  divide  the  works  of  certain  authors 
into  "  periods,"  each  representing  a  distinct  phase 

29 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

in  the  mental  or  spiritual  evolution  of  the  writer. 
In  the  case  of  Brieux,  this  method  of  classification 
is  not  inappropriate.  The  early  plays  —  Blanch- 
ette,  La  Couvee,  Les  Bienfaiteurs,  and  Result  at 
des  courses!  —  are  a  series  of  contemporaneous 
pictures  of  classes  in  the  humbler  walks  of  life : 
of  the  farmer,  the  bourgeois,  the  petty  merchant, 
the  manufacturer,  the  artisan.  These  works  are, 
besides,  indicative  in  a  way  of  their  author's  pre- 
dilection for  social  problems,  but  he  has  not  yet 
fully  entered  that  phase  in  which  he  becomes  rabid 
and  prophetically  didactic.  That  Storm  and 
Stress  period  includes  La  Robe  rouge,  Les  Trois 
filles  de  M.  Dupont,  Les  Avaries,  and  Maternite. 
At  first  he  was  content  merely  with  social  comedies ; 
then  he  must  needs  preach  jeremiads.  (We  must 
always  however  except  La  Robe  rouge,  in  which 
his  art  hides  for  the  time  being  all  didactic  pur- 
pose.) These  works  are  powerful  and  crushing 
indictments  of  "  systems  "  and  social  wrongs,  they 
are  expressions  of  the  author's  most  deep-felt  con- 
victions. He  felt  evidently  that  uncompromising 
force  was  the  best  means  to  his  end.  But  with 
years  has  come  a  degree  of  moderation,  a  more 
serene  and  philosophical  outlook  upon  life;  a  mood 
of  quiet  and  limited  optimism  has  taken  the  place 
of  the  earlier  unrestrained  outbursts,  Les  Hanne- 
tons,  a  comedy  of  manners,  followed  Maternite, 
and  after  it  came  Simone,  a  serious  play  with  a 
"  happy  "  ending.  To  this  later  period  belong 
also  La  Franqaise,  a  somewhat  disappointing  piece 
—  a  defense  of  the  Frenchwoman  and  her  home, 
with  a  good  deal  of  political  talk  — ;  La  Foi,  a 
philosophical  and  religious  play;  and  Suzette,  a 

30 


EUGENE  BRIEUX 


plea  written  in  a  manifestly  sympathetic  vein  for 
the  child  of  divorced  parents.  In  spite  of  occa- 
sional "  strong  "  scenes  and  a  continual  striving 
for  moral  lessons,  all  these  plays  are  on  a  much 
lower  emotional  plane  than  those  belonging  to  the 
Storm  and  Stress.  Vituperation  has  given  way 
to  sympathetic  reasoning  and  firm  and  convincing 
argument  —  these  plays  have  lost  something  in 
strength,  but  they  have  gained  in  breadth  of  view 
and  humanity. 

Human  as  these  plays  are,  and  vital  as  the  in- 
terest in  them  must  be,  something  is  lacking.  The 
social  reformer  must  of  course  smash  idols,  but 
he  should  occasionally  suggest  a  remedy.  This 
Brieux  has  done,  but  only  in  a  negative  manner; 
not  until  La  Femme  seule,  produced  in  December 
19 1 2,  do  we  see  an  individual  contending  with  the 
forces  of  society,  with  half  a  chance  for  success. 

In  La  Femme  seule  the  author  asks,  "  What  can 
a  young  woman,  who  wishes  or  is  forced  to  remain 
single  and  independent,  do  to  make  a  living?  " 
The  play  shows  that  society  —  in  France,  at  any 
rate  —  does  all  in  its  power  to  prevent  her  making 
an  honest  living;  but  it  shows  further  what  in- 
dividual strength  and  courage  can  do,  and  in  the 
character  of  the  "  emancipated  "  Therese,  we  have 
what  to  my  knowledge  is  the  only  woman  in  the 
contemporary  French  drama  who  at  all  approaches 
economic  independence  in  the  face  of  practically 
unsurmountable  obstacles. 

Therese,  left  an  orphan  at  the  age  of  nineteen, 
has  been  living  for  some  years  with  her  godpar- 
ents. Monsieur  and  Madame  Gueret,  when  she 
learns  that  the  family  notary  has  absconded  with 

31 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

a  large  sum  of  money,  including  her  dowry. 
Rene,  her  fiance,  cannot  marry  her,  because  his 
parents  will  not  consent  to  an  alliance  which  brings 
them  no  material  benefit.  The  godparents  offer 
to  take  Therese  to  Evreux,  where  they  must  go, 
but  the  girl  tells  them  that  she  has  "  no  intention 
of  leaving  Paris." 

M.  GuERET.     I  don't  understand?  .  .  . 

Mme.  Gueret.  You're  not  going  to  live  in  Paris 
alone  ? 

Therese.     I  am. 

M.  Gueret.  All  alone!  I  tell  you,  I  don't  under- 
stand. 

Therese.  Both  of  you  have  been  so  good  to  me!  I 
shall  remember  your  goodness  as  long  as  I  live — .  My 
father's  death  left  me  absolutely  alone  in  the  world ;  he  was 
only  a  friend  of  yours,  and  I  am  not  related  to  you.  You 
took  me  in  and  treated  me  as  your  own  daughter  for 
four  years;  I  appreciate  that  with  all  my  heart.  I  am 
twenty-three,  and  I  don't  want  to  be  dependent  on  you. 

She  decides  to  live  alone  in  Paris;  she  has  been 
offered  a  position  on  the  Femme  Libre,  a  recently- 
established  periodical.  It  is  taken  for  granted 
that  Rene  cannot  marry  her:  she  has  no  dowry. 
She  has  hopes,  however,  that  he  will  offer  to  do  so 
in  spite  of  his  parents,  and  just  as  he  bids  her 
good-by,  she  says  to  him : 

Therese.  Shall  we  marry,  in  spite  of  everything? 
Listen  to  me :  I  love  you  more  than  you  can  imagine,  more 
than  I  ever  let  you  know. —  Have  confidence  in  me:  place 
your  future  in  my  hands.  Marry  me,  and  never  mind  the 
consequences.  You'll  see,  we'll  be  happy!  You  have  no 
idea  how  capable  I  am,  how  much  energy  I  have  in  reserve. 

32 


EUGENE  BRIEUX 


I'll  work,  and  you  will,  too.  You  weren't  successful 
when  you  worked  alone,  but  you  will  feel  stronger  when 
you  feel  me  at  your  side,  to  console  you  in  failure,  to  en- 
courage and  help  you  in  success  —  I'm  willing  to  live  the 
simplest  sort  of  life,  Rene,  the  humblest  —  until  we  tw-o, 
by  our  effort,  an  effort  bright  with  hope  and  pride,  shall 
conquer,  together  — ! 

Rene.     I  assure  you,  Therese  —  my  parents  — 
Therese.     [After  a   long  pause.]     Go!     Poor   boy! 
Forget  what  I've  said.     Adieu! 

Rene.     No,  not  adieu !     I  shall  make  my  father  — 
Therese.     It's  too  late,    /  don't  want  you  now  1 

The  second  act  opens  upon  the  editorial  offices  of 
the  Femme  Libre.  Therese  has  found  an  occupa- 
tion assuring  her  a  sufficient  Income  for  her  needs, 
and  lives  happily,  the  more  so  as  Rene  has  had  the 
courage  to  defy  his  parents  and  work  for  his  own 
living  In  his  own  way.  But  owing  to  a  lack  of  In- 
terest on  the  part  of  the  subscribers  the  magazine 
must  be  reduced  In  size,  and  all  the  salaries  corre- 
spondingly cut.  It  Is  not  long  before  Monsieur 
Nerlsse,  the  editor,  makes  love  to  Therese,  and  she 
is  obliged  to  leave. 

The  last  act  finds  Therese  with  her  godparents 
at  Evreux,  but  living  on  an  independent  basis. 
For  three  months  after  leaving  the  magazine,  she 
had  sought  without  success  a  position  which  would 
yield  enough  to  keep  her  from  starving.  "  A 
single  woman,"  she  says,  "why  she's  an  outcast! 
I  had  no  end  of  trouble  In  trying  to  rent  a  room. 
How  often  have  I  heard  them  say:  'We  don't 
rent  to  single  women.'  One  day  when  I  insisted, 
I  heard  the  porter  say  to  his  wife,  behind  my  back: 
'  She's  plain  enough  to  be  honest! '  " 

33 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

But  on  her  return  to  Evreux,  she  organizes  a 
woman's  trade  union  on  a  small  scale,  which  suc- 
ceeds so  well  that  the  workingmen  take  fright;  a 
delegate  is  sent  from  Paris  to  demand  the  dissolu- 
tion of  the  little  syndicate.  The  delegates'  motto 
is  "  The  husband's  place  is  the  workshop,  the 
wife's  at  her  own  fireside."  The  delegates' 
threats  go  unheeded,  for  Therese  stands  her 
ground  firmly  until,  at  last,  the  workers  at  the  very 
factory  In  which  the  union  has  been  organized, 
strike,  and  destroy  the  women's  workroom. 
For  the  moment,  Therese  is  beaten,  but  it  is  only 
for  the  moment.  "  I  am  going,"  she  cries.  She 
is  going  to  Rene,  but  —  and  her  words  are  cer- 
tainly intended  as  prophetic:  she  will  never  rest 
content  by  her  own  fireside  I  —  she  is  going  to  con- 
quer. 

M.  GuERET.     Where  are  you  going? 

Therese.     I  am  going  where  I  feel  it  is  my  duty  to  go. 

M.  Feliat.     Wait  until  to-morrow. 

Therese.  No,  I  take  the  night  train  for  Paris.  But 
the  workingmen  need  have  no  cause  to  rejoice.  In  this 
new  war  of  the  sexes,  it  is  the  men  who  will  be  beaten, 
because  women  work  for  lower  wages  —  they  don't  have 
to  make  money  to  squander  at  the  saloon !  Only  the  men 
will  be  conquered,  only  the  men,  Monsieur  Feliat!  The 
sons  of  middle-class  families  who  haven't  enough  stamina 
to  marry  girls  without  dowries  will  be  sure  to  find  those 
same  girls  later  —  poor  girls  whom  they  forced  to  go  to 
work!  ...  A  new  era  has  begun.  In  every  land,  among 
rich  and  poor,  out  of  every  home  deserted  by  drunkards 
or  left  empty  by  those  who  fear  the  tribulations  of  mar- 
riage, a  woman  will  rise  up  and  leave,  and  come  and  take 
her  place  beside  you,  in  the  factory,  in  the  workshop,  in  the 
office.    You  wouldn't  take  her  as  a  housewife,  and  she 

34 


EUGENE  BRIEUX 


refuses  to  prostitute  herself  to  you  —  she  will  be  a  work- 
ing woman,  a  competitor,  and  a  successful  competitor!  — 
Good-by ! 

Brleux's  latest  play  is  Le  Bourgeois  aux  champs. 
"  In  this  play,"  says  Robert  de  Flers,  "  the  peasant 
types  are  drawn  with  great  skill ;  we  feel  that  they 
are  true,  so  true  indeed  that  they  tend  to  throw  the 
principal  character,  Monsieur  Cocatrix,  into  the 
shade.  Monsieur  Brieux  has  attempted  to  mold 
into  a  single  figure  two  different  bourgeois  types 
.  .  .  one  studied  from  life,  one  from  literature." 
Whatever  he  has  attempted,  he  has  succeeded  in 
creating  a  worthy  successor  to  Moliere's  Monsieur 
Jourdain,  Augier's  Monsieur  Poirier,  and  La- 
biche's  Monsieur  Perrichon.  The  essentially 
comic  side  of  the  worthy  would-be  agricultural  re- 
former is  afforded  a  much  larger  place  than  is 
customary  in  Brieux's  plays;  Brieux  seems  at  last 
to  be  ridding  himself  of  the  idea  that  each  play 
must  teach  or  prove  or  destroy. 

Cocatrix,  a  man  of  wealth  and  ambition,  has 
decided  to  leave  Paris  and  establish  himself  in  the 
country,  in  order  to  reform  farming  methods  and 
ameliorate  the  material  and  moral  welfare  of  the 
peasants.  Together  with  his  wife  and  daughter 
Fernande  and  his  assistant  Victor  Maillard,  he 
enthusiastically  starts  his  campaign.  Loaded 
down  with  works  on  scientific  farming,  hygiene, 
"  alcoholism,"  full  of  ideas  on  the  "  dignity  of 
labor  "  and  the  equality  of  men,  he  lives  secure 
in  the  belief  that  he  will  be  received  with  open 
arms  by  the  people  of  the  country.  But  he  Is 
not  long  in  finding  out  that  he  is  hopelessly  unfit 

35 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

for  his  task,  that  at  every  turn  those  whom  he  had 
intended  to  benefit  do  their  best  to  ruin  him ;  they 
poach  upon  his  preserves,  steal  the  fruit  from  his 
trees,  and  destroy  his  property.  He  is  an  in- 
truder always  under  suspicion;  this  constant  war- 
fare ends  in  making  him  still  more  illogical  and 
fitfully  impetuous  and  impulsive.  He  will  not  al- 
low his  employees,  for  instance,  their  habitual 
morning  drink,  and  insists  on  giving  them  a  chem- 
ical non-alcholic  concoction  against  which  they 
naturally  rebel.  He  believes  he  knows  what  will 
do  them  good,  and  tries  at  every  turn  to  force  it 
down  their  throats.  It  is  to  this  that  they  object. 
One  of  the  peasants,  Biriot,  is  in  conference  with 
the  good  bourgeois : 

CocATRix.  .  .  .  It's  just  as  if  we  were  total  strangers 
to  one  another. 

Biriot.    Well,  you  don't  belong  to  this  section  — 

CocATRiX.  IDiscouraged.]  What  have  I  done  to  you? 
Why  don't  they  like  me  around  here?  Tell  me,  think 
now!  I  could  have  stayed  in  Paris,  and  lived  on  my  in- 
come from  this  farm,  and  have  had  nothing  to  do  with 
you  here. 

Biriot.    That  v^^ould've  satisfied  us  to  a  T. 

CocATRix.  Did  you  ever  ask  yourselves  why  I've  gone 
to  such  trouble? 

Biriot.     It  amuses  you. 

CocATRix.     No,  it  doesn't  amuse  me. 

Biriot.    Then  it's  so's  you  can  be  deputy.  .  .  . 

Cocatrix.  Look  at  me  now  .  .  .  let's  speak  as  man 
to  man;  two  comrades  —  I  have  your  good  at  heart.  If 
I've  done  you  any  injury,  any  of  you,  or  if  I've  made  any 
mistakes,  it  vi^ould  be  much  better  of  you  to  tell  me  right 
out,  and  not  try  to  get  even  with  me.  .  .  .  You  believe 
what  I  say,  don't  you? 

36 


EUGENE  BRIEUX 


BiRiOT.     I  don't  know  — 

CocATRix.     You  don't  know  ?     Don't  I  like  you  ? 

BiRiOT.  The  same  way's  you  like  your  horse:  to  get 
him  to  work  harder  for  you. 

CoCATRix.  Then  I'm  merely  selfish,  am  I  ?  .  No,  you're 
wrong.  Give  me  a  chance,  now,  to  prove  my  friendship 
for  you.     That's  all  I  ask  — 

BiRiOT.  All  right,  I  was  wanting  to  speak  to  you  about 
something  — 

CoCATRix.  Tell  me,  tell  me.  It  must  be  something 
impossible  for  me  to  refuse  it. 

BiRiOT.     All  right :  I  want  you  to  recommend  me  — 

CocATRix.     Where?     To  whom?     For  what? 

BiRiOT.     For  a  conductor. 

CoCATRix.     You — ?     A  conductor? 

Cocatrix's  heart  may  be  in  the  right  place,  but  his 
methods  are  wrong.  He  is  a  well-intentioned  but 
totally  incompetent  reformer.  And  here  is  pre- 
cisely the  proof  of  the  fact  that  Brieux  has  not 
wished  to  write  a  thesis  play.  Had  he  intended  to 
demonstrate  that  agricultural  methods  needed 
radical  reformation,  that  "  reformers  "  could  not 
deal  adequately  with  the  question,  he  would  not 
have  taken  such  pains  to  paint  us  the  genial  por- 
trait of  Monsieur  Cocatrix.  Surely  no  one  could 
ever  imagine  that  he  could  reform!  No,  the 
Bourgeois  aux  Champs  is  happily  little  other  than 
a  character-study. 

The  last  act  accomplishes  the  transformation 
in  Cocatrix's  mind  which  was  already  beginning 
in  the  second.  The  somewhat  unnecessary  and 
banal  love-interest  with  Fernande  and  Victor  is 
brought  to  its  long-anticipated  conclusion.  The 
family,  haunted  with  the  thought  that  they  must 

37 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

spend  the  winter  in  idleness  (they  are  still  only  in 
October),  finding  "music,  painting,  looking  at 
photographs,  puzzles,  and  '  Bridge,'  "  very  tire- 
some, are  "  dying  of  ennui."  There  is  only  one 
thing  to  do :  move  to  town.  Cocatrix  decides 
to  do  this,  and  to  run  for  deputy  of  the  district. 
As  the  peasants  come  to  protest  against  an  un- 
popular decision  he  has  made,  he  addresses  them 
from  his  open  window: 

Fellow  Citizens:  Certain  enemies,  jealous  men  from 
the  neighboring  villages,  have  circulated  the  report  that  the 
newly  projected  street-car  line  would  not  run  through  our 
section.  They  lie  .  .  .  the  line  as  planned  includes  a 
junction,  so  that  you  will  have  two  lines.  [Cheers.]  .  .  . 
Your  magnificent  fields,  your  handsome  town,  will  receive 
that  consideration  which  is  due  their  importance.  .  .  . 
And  that  is  not  all,  for  I  myself  will  work  in  order  to 
better  it.  I  have  great  pleasure  in  announcing  to  you  a 
new  postoffice.  ...  I  hereby  humbly  solicit  your  help,  and 
ask  you  for  your  support  in  obtaining  the  vacant  place  of 
Councillor.  I  make  no  promises  which  I  do  not  fulfill  — 
your  principles  are  my  own  principles,  and  mine  yours.  .  .  . 
My  platform  in  short  is  this:  to  do  all  in  my  power  for 
the  country  people.  Pensions  for  aged  farmers,  reduction 
of  the  number  of  officers  without  affecting  those  already 
holding  office;  suppression  of  a  standing  army  and  the 
establishment  of  a  garrison  in  the  neighboring  sub-prefec- 
ture. You  are  the  masters  —  a  free  Church  with  the 
State  in  complete  control.  And  let  me  warn  you  to  be  on 
your  guard  against  eleventh-hour  conversions :  my  past  will 
answer  for  my  future!  [Cheers  and  applause.]  My 
friends,  my  dear  friends !  I  am  your  servant,  your  friend : 
you  may  count  on  me  as  you  would  on  yourselves.  Oli- 
garchy of  the  masses,  human  solidarity,  social  capillarity. 
The  Will  of  the  People!     [Cheers.]     Hurrah,  hurrah! 

38 


EUGENE  BRIEUX 


Crowd.     [Outside.]     Bravo!     Bravo! 

CoCATRix.     Cheer,  you  fools! 

Count  Bouchin.  My  dear  friend,  you  are  far  too 
modest :  you  should  run  for  deputy  right  now. 

CoCATRix.  [To  the  crowd.]  Wait,  wait!  My 
friends.  You  are  my  friends,  you  are  like  a  family  to  me. 
I  wish  to  announce  to  you  some  good  news:  I  am  truly  a 
Friend  of  the  People,  and  this  is  the  proof  of  what  I  say: 
I,  the  libeled  bourgeois,  I  am  giving  in  marriage  the  hand 
of  my  own  daughter  to  a  simple  workingman !  [Cheers.] 
Victor,  Fernande,  bow! 

Bouchin.     [To  the  public]     He  will  be  Minister! 

CoCATRix.  [To  himself,  gravely,  as  he  wipes  his 
brow.]      Poor  people ! 

Bouchin's  remark  Is  reminiscent  of  that  of  the 
bonhomme  Poirier  which  closes  Augier's  Le 
Gendre  de  M.  Poirier:  "  .  .  .  et  pair  de  France 
en  quarante-huit !  "  Brieux's  ability  at  the  age  of 
fifty-six  to  adapt  himself  to  a  new  manner,  his 
tendency  to  draw  character  for  its  own  sake,  his 
preoccupation  with  human  beings  rather  than  with 
human  institutions,  may  well  inspire  the  hope  in  us 
that  he  may  still  write  the  comedy  of  the  genera- 
tion, a  modern  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier! 


39 


GEORGES  DE  PORTO-RICHE 

Georges  de  Porto-Riche  is  a  Frenchman 
among  Frenchmen,  a  Latin  among  Latins.  It  is 
rather  difficult  for  the  average  Anglo-Saxon  to  see 
much  in  his  work  outside  what  appears  to  be  a  con- 
tinual obsession  of  the  senses.  Donnay  may  ana- 
lyze love,  Bataille  use  it  as  a  prime  motive  to  hu- 
man action,  but  Porto-Riche  revels  in  it.  Every 
poem,  every  play  of  his  is  a  love-story.  He  once 
said:  "My  first  happy  memory  is  that  of  a 
woman."  Had  George  Moore  been  a  French- 
man, he  might  have  written  Amoureuse. 

The  most  dilettante  fashion  of  life  of  this  poet 
has  given  him  ample  opportunity  to  write  his  plays 
at  leisure.  The  first  appeared  in  1873,  the  latest 
in  191 1.  On  one  of  his  plays,  Le  Vieil  Homme, 
he  spent  fifteen  years;  recently  he  announced  the 
publication  of  three  plays  upon  which  he  has  been 
working  for  at  least  five  years,  and  which  are  not 
expected  for  another  two  or  three.  Between  the 
production  of  Le  Passe  and  Le  Vieil  Homme 
there  was  an  interval  of  thirteen  years,  during 
which  only  one  play,  a  short  unimportant  piece  in 
two  acts,  saw  the  stage. 

Born  at  Bordeaux  in  1849,  of  parents  of  Italian 
extraction,  he  spent  his  early  youth  in  dreamy  un- 
happiness.  His  must  have  been  an  extremely  sen- 
sitive nature,  if  we  can  credit  his  sentiment  set 
forth  in  the  following  verses : 

40 


I 


GEORGES  DE  PORTO-RICHE 


Ma  tristesse  vous  offensa. 
Helas !  ma  tete  est  orpheline, 
Voila  longtemps  que  je  I'incline, 
Etant  petit,  ga  commenga. 

Pouvre  ecolier  pres  de  mon  frere, 
J'etais  vetu  du  bleu  sarrot. 
Heureux  celui  que  Ton  prefere! 
Ma  mere  m'appelait  "  De  Trop !  " 

De  Trop,  ce  nom  dit  mes  detresses ; 
Ma  mere  ne  m'a  pas  cheri 
De  mon  enfance  sans  caresses 
Je  reste  encore  endolori. 

.  .  .  Je  fus  de  ceux-la  qui  demeurent 
Seuls  au  dortoir,  un  ete  plein. 
Ce  n'est  pas  quand  les  parents  meurent, 
C'est  alors  qu'on  est  orphelin. 

Like  so  many  of  his  confreres  he  was  forced  to 
take  up  the  study  of  Law,  but  he  soon  abandoned 
it  as  hopelessly  uncongenial.  "  Secretly  flattered," 
says  the  poet's  biographer,  Claude  R.  Marx,  "  by 
the  youth's  abandonment  of  his  career,  his  father 
even  encouraged  him  to  work  at  literature."  In 
spite  of  Porto-Riche's  loneliness,  of  which  he  com- 
plains in  the  poem  above  quoted,  his  first  verses 
were  dedicated  in  turn  to  his  mother,  father,  and 
brothers.  Slight  volumes,  appearing  between 
1872  and  1877,  Prima  Verba,  Pommes  d'Eve,  and 
Tout  n'est  pas  Rose,  show  clear  traces  of  literary 
"  influences,"  chiefly  Victor  Hugo,  a  poet  warmly 
admired  by  the  impressionable  youth.  They  were 
judged  suflSciently  important  to  be  regarded  as 
dangerous,  as  the  author  was  imprisoned,  "  for 
political  reasons."     The  sensual  and  hypersensi- 

41 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

tive  nature  of  the  man  permeated  these  early 
verses,  and  the  sentiment  of  love,  fleshly  and 
ethereal  in  turn,  struck  the  note  that  was  later  to 
be  heard  through  every  play. 

A  sojourn  in  the  south  of  France  and  In  Italy 
soon  gave  wide  scope  to  Porto-Riche's  imagina- 
tion; the  atmosphere  of  those  lands  he  seems  to 
have  assimilated  at  once  and  breathed  into  the 
softest  verses  and  the  most  amorous  scenes  of  his 
poetic  tragedy,  L'Infidele,  a  play  which  was  not 
written  however  until  many  years  later. 

Returning  to  Paris,  where  he  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Maupassant,  he  lived  the  true  Vie  de  Bo- 
heme,  and  like  many  another,  carried  manuscripts 
of  plays  from  manager  to  manager,  without  suc- 
cess. Leaving  aside  the  relatively  unimportant  po- 
etic plays  —  Le  Fertile,  Un  Drama  sous  Philippe 
II,  Les  Deux  fautes,  and  Fanina  —  all  belong- 
ing to  the  'seventies,  his  first  important  mature 
work  was  La  Chance  de  Francoise,  a  prose  char- 
acter piece.  This  one-act  comedy  was  written  in 
1883,  but  not  until  Antoine  had  made  way  for  the 
productions  of  new  authors  did  it  see  the  boards. 
It  was  first  produced  in  1888,  and  was  so  success- 
ful that  it  has  been  often  revived.  After  this 
work  had  given  the  author  some  degree  of  renown, 
the  way  was  a  little  easier  for  the  next  plays.  If 
La  Chance  de  Francoise,  as  a  Theatre  Libre  study, 
did  not  attract  very  much  attention,  the  next  play 
did:  L'Infidele  raised  something  of  a  contro- 
versy. The  daring  lines,  the  rather  brutal  sen- 
suality of  the  work,  appeared  to  shock  even  a 
Parisian  public  of  the  day,  yet  when  the  play  was 
revived  at  the  Porte  Saint-Martin  in  the  autumn  of 

42 


GEORGES  DE  PORTO-RICHE 

1 9 13,  the  audience  was  enthusiastic.  But  Uln- 
fidele  must  be  confessed  a  little  trashy;  even  the 
lovely  verses  cannot  atone  for  the  banal  and  melo- 
dramatic story  of  the  love-murder.  The  play, 
however,  paved  the  way  for  Porto-Riche's  tri- 
umphal entry  into  the  theater  as  one  of  the  great- 
est dramatic  writers  of  his  day.  He  was  soon 
to  produce  work  of  finer  caliber.  Mme.  Rejane's 
production  oi  Amoureiise  in  1891  still  remains  one 
of  the  memories  which  linger  in  the  minds  of  those 
first-nighters  who  were  present  at  the  premieres 
even  of  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  and  Chantecler. 
Amoureuse  was  In  many  senses  an  epoch-making 
play.  Even  "  Uncle "  Francisque  Sarcey,  the 
critic-despot,  declared  that  it  would  be  played  for 
twenty  years,  and  the  latest  revival,  twenty-two 
years  after,  afforded  no  indication  of  flagging  In- 
terest on  the  part  of  the  public.  M.  Marx  quotes 
a  saying  to  the  effect  that  If  Porto-Riche  Is  not  the 
father  of  many  plays,  of  how  many  Is  he  not  the 
grandfather?  At  this  date  It  Is  perhaps  a  little 
difficult  to  realize  the  originality  of  that  early  ef- 
fort, especially  in  the  light  of  the  vast  number  of 
derivative  works.  The  best  manner  therefore  of 
approaching  Amoureuse  Is  to  read  the  plays  of  the 
epoch  and  those  Immediately  preceding  It. 
Amoureuse  Is  so  astoundingly  natural,  its  dialogue 
so  easy  and  flowing,  the  characters  are  so  real,  that 
a  first  reading  Is  likely  to  leave  us  asking,  "  What 
Is  so  great  about  It  all?  "  The  very  simplicity  of 
It,  the  unemphatic  action,  the  quietness  with  which 
the  slight  plot  is  developed,  make  us  part  of  the 
action;  here  at  last  Is  the  slice  of  life  for  which  the 
Naturalists   had   striven   so   hardl     The   gentle 

43 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Porto-Riche,  at  heart  a  member  of  no  school  or 
coterie,  has  outstripped  all  his  contemporaries. 
And  his  subject  is  developed  by  means  of  the 
menage  a  trois;  but  the  trois  —  the  husband,  lover, 
and  wife  —  are  so  much  like  ordinary  human  be- 
ings, that  any  other  course  than  the  one  adopted 
would  seem  false.  And  the  effect  is  alarming. 
Yet  the  Anglo-Saxon  must  admit  the  truth  of  the 
picture.  He  may  object  to  the  spectacle  of  an 
over-sexed  woman,  but  granted  the  hypothesis,  he 
cannot  question  the  art  and  essential  saneness  of 
the  author's  treatment  of  that  woman,  her  hus- 
band, and  her  lover.  The  subject  is  indeed  some- 
what unpleasant. 

Germaine.  It  is  not  a  question  of  right,  my  dear;  it 
is  a  question  of  love. 

Etienne.  But  I  am  no  less  your  victim,  as  I  have  been 
for  the  past  eight  years. 

Germaine.     For  the  past  eight  years? 

Etienne.  Yes,  and  my  torture  has  not  yet  come  to 
an  end. 

Germaine.     Treason,  eh? 

EtiennS.  For  many  years  we  must  live  side  by  side, 
acting  our  parts  in  unison  —  all  our  personal  habits,  our 
interests,  even  our  deceptions  must  mingle  together.  We 
are  condemned  to  talk  love  to  one  another  eternally,  every 
day! 

Germaine.     And  every  evening. 

Etienne.  .  .  .  My  physical  self  does  not  matter,  I 
want  my  thoughts  to  myself. 

Germaine.  You  seem  to  want  to  get  rid  of  me  at 
those  times  —  I  can't  understand  it! 

Etienne.  I  should  welcome  them,  and  you,  if  you 
weren't  always  the  first  to  vi^ish  for  them. 

Germaine.    You  lie. 

44 


GEORGES  DE  PORTO-RICHE 


Then  the  mistake  of  the  marriage",  a  mistake  on 
Etienne's  part,  is  spoken  of  for  the  first  time  be- 
tween husband  and  wife. 

Germaine.  If  you  were  certain  that  I  loved  you,  you 
ought  never  to  have  married  me ! 

Etienne.     I  was  wrong  to  do  it. 

Germaine.  You  were  over  thirty,  I  was  twenty  .  .  . 
I  told  you  I  adored  you,  and  you  took  me.  Why  were 
you  so  good,  and  so  feeble?  Why  did  you  let  me  believe 
in  your  love?  Why  didn't  you  lie,  deceive  me?  Why 
weren't  you  cruel  at  first?  Why  have  you  waited  so 
long  to  let  me  learn  the  truth? 

Etienne.     I  was  wrong. 

Germaine.  There!  You  are  an  egoist  at  bottom,  a 
real  Don  Juan;  you  wanted  to  be  loved. 

Etienne.     Not  so  much  as  I  have  been! 

Germaine.  Did  I  give  you  more  than  you  bargained 
for? 

Etienne.    Yes. 

Germain.  Poor  man!  I  love  him  too  much,  and  he 
loves  me  too  little.     That  is  my  crime! 

Etienne.     Our  misery! 

At  the  end  of  the  act  Etienne  leaves  for  Italy,  and 
half  in  a  joking  mood  he  tells  the  "  friend  "  to 
"Take  her;  you  adore  her;  console  her.  I  give 
her  to  you."  In  a  fit  of  rage  and  unsatisfied  love 
she  throws  herself  into  Pascal's  arms.  On 
Etienne's  return  he  finds  them  together.  He  sends 
Pascal  off,  and  Germaine  and  Etienne  have  their 
final  explanation.  Etienne,  practically  convinced 
of  his  wife's  guilt,  and  sure  that  he  does  not  love 
her  now,  wants  her  to  leave  his  house  forever. 
She  prepares  to  go.  But  the  moment  she  puts  on 
her  cloak  and  makes  a  step  toward  the  door,  he 
bars  the  way. 

45 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Etienne.     Where  are  you  going? 

Germaine.     That  is  no  concern  of  yours. 

Etienne.  I  want  to  know.  [She  puts  on  her  gloves.^ 
You're  going  to  kill  yourself  —  I  know  it. 

Germaine.  [Concealing'  her  emotion.]  You're  mis- 
taken; a  woman  who  is  going  to  kill  herself  does  not  put 
on  her  gloves  so  calmly. 

Etienne.  Then  where  are  you  going?  Tell  me. 
[As  she  attempts  to  pass  him,  he  again  bars  her  way.] 
You're  not  going  to  him,  are  you? 

Germaine.     Your  jealousy  comes  a  trifle  late! 

Etienne.     You  still  bear  my  name. 

Germaine.  You  have  told  me  to  go  —  and  I  am  go- 
ing. 

Etienne.  Wait  until  I  have  had  an  explanation  with 
him! 

Germaine.  I  shan't  stay  another  five  minutes  under 
this  roof. 

Etienne.  If  I  have  to  put  you  under  lock  and  key 
and  force  you  to  stay,  you  shall  not  go  to  that  cad!  I 
forbid  you!  [Once  more  she  tries  to  go,  but  he  seizes  her 
violently  by  the  arm.  She  screams.  Ashamed  of  himself 
he  says:]     Oh,  I've  hurt  you.     I  am  sorry. 

Germaine.     [Full  of  hope.]     Etienne! 

Etienne.  [Bitterly,  after  a  moment's  pause.]  Why 
did  my  jealousy,  my  fear,  make  me  open  that  door  for  you 
again?  Why  did  I  prevent  your  going?  Why  this 
wretched  contradiction,  which  forced  me  to  come  back? 
Can  you  go  now?  We  have  fought  like  mortal  enemies, 
insulted  one  another  unpardonably ;  I  misread  you:  you 
have  been  unfaithful  to  me  —  and  yet  here  I  am.  We  are 
bound  together  by  the  evil  we  have  done,  and  by  what  we 
have  said  to  each  other.  How  vile,  how  corrupt  it  all 
is!     [He  cries.] 

Germaine.     [Also  crying.]     My  God! 

Etienne.  [Shamefacedly,  after  a  pause.]  You  did 
lie,  didn't  you  ?    You  weren't  going  to  him,  were  you  ? 

46 


GEORGES  DE  PORTO-RICHE 


Germaine.     No. 

Etienne.  You  still  love  me,  you  have  never  stopped 
loving  me  ?     Answer,  please,  you  see  what  a  coward  I  am ! 

Germaine.  Why  do  I  need  answer?  Won't  what  I 
have  done  always  stand  between  us?  We  can't  live  to- 
gether now? 

Etienne.     {With  bowed  head.]     Perhaps. 

Germaine.     Perhaps.     Then  is  there  no  justice? 

Etienne.     [Tenderly.]     Thank  God! 

Germaine.  [Going  toward  the  door.]  You're  mad 
— 'I'd  better  go. 

Etienne.     [Stopping  her.]     No! 

Germaine.     Think,  Etienne,  you  will  be  very  unhappy. 

Etienne.  [Not  daring  to  look  at  her  nor  approach 
her.]     What  difference  does  that  make? 

Germaine's  supreme  love  may  prove  a  source  of 
pain  to  herself  and  Etienne,  but  its  very  strength 
binds  the  pair  together.  Her  infidelity  was  merely 
an  incident,  which  served  only  to  strengthen  their 
union.  No,  for  the  perfect  amorist,  Porto-Riche, 
"  there  is  no  justice,  thank  God!  ";  there  are  only 
feelings  and  sentiments,  and  the  natural  attraction 
of  one  human  being  for  another. 

This  attitude  may  not  be  moral  but,  says  this 
dramatist,  it  is  life;  it  may  indeed  be  the  high- 
est morality,  but  Porto-Riche  is  far  too  subtle  an 
artist  to  say  so.  Together  with  Maurice  Donnay 
he  says  —  although  not  directly  —  that  whatever 
is  sincere  and  natural  is  right.  Donnay  declares 
that  conjugal  infidelity  is  a  "  social  necessity,"  and 
it  is  his  wont  to  show  that  society  usually  punishes 
offenders  against  its  laws,  not  because  the  offenders 
are  *'  immoral  "  in  any  abstract  sense  of  the  term, 
but  because  they  are  not  "  playing  the  game." 

47 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

The  wages  of  sin  is  not  always  death,  say  Donnay 
and  Porto-Riche,  but  sometimes  peace  and  happi- 
ness through  suffering  (in  Donnay's  Amants)  and 
greater  love  {Amoureuse) .  How  far  this  is  from 
The  Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray! 

Unwittingly  has  Porto-Riche  exercised  an  In- 
fluence over  his  followers  which  has  been  far  from 
good.  Amoureuse  was  among  the  first  of  the 
modern  "triangle"  plays;  what  he  did  so  per- 
fectly a  host  of  imitators  have  often  debased. 
But  he  can  no  more  be  blamed  for  this  than  can 
Brieux,  whose  Damaged  Goods  appeared  as  a  sig- 
nal for  those  works  in  which  the  authors  strove 
only  to  excite  by  means  of  the  externally  sensa- 
tional. 

Porto-Riche's  next  play  was  Le  Passe,  by  some 
critics  considered  superior  to  Amoureuse.  But 
the  earlier  play  fortunately  lacked  the  brutality  of 
Le  Passe,  the  action  was  less  artificial  and  the  char- 
acters truer  to  life.  This  play  is  the  story  of  a 
lying  lover  and  a  devoted  mistress.  The  link  of 
passion  is  apparently  adamantine,  but  in  the  hour 
of  doubt  and  trial,  she  realizes  the  essential  small- 
ness,  the  deceit  and  hypocrisy  of  the  man  she  loves. 
"Go  away,"  she  cries;  "you  will  always  lie!" 
The  "  all  for  love  "  theme,  which  was  the  basis  of 
Amoureuse,  is  varied  here  a  little,  but  we  are  left 
rather  uncertain  as  to  the  dramatist's  exact  inten- 
tion. 

The  long-awaited  Vieil  Homme  reached  the 
stage  in  191 1.  It  is  a  bulky  play  (four  hundred 
closely-printed  pages),  and  by  far  the  most  ambi- 
tious of  Porto-Riche's  works.  The  story  is 
summed  up  by  Edmond  Stoullig  In  his  well-known 

48 


GEORGES  DE  PORTO-RICHE 


Annates  du  theatre  et  de  la  musique:  "  The  '  Old 
Man  '  is  the  indomitable  instinct  for  galanterie  in 
the  heart  of  Michel  Fontanet.  Was  he  not  one 
of  those  nomads  in  quest  of  the  baser  appetites, 
of  adultery  for  its  own  sake,  who  sow  despair  and 
moral  ruin  in  their  wake?  So  for  some  twelve 
years  has  he  rendered  his  unfortunate  wife 
Therese  most  unhappy.  In  vain  does  this  Don 
Juan,  who  is  past  forty,  endeavor  to  quiet  down; 
in  vain  has  he  buried  himself  in  the  country,  and 
established  a  great  printing  firm  at  Vizille,  in  the 
Dauphine;  in  vain  is  he  a  good  father  and  a  good 
husband,  very  much  in  love  with  his  wife;  in  vain, 
attached  to  his  work  and  faithful  to  his  duties. 
Now  comes  the  brazen  coquette,  a  woman  of  pleas- 
ure, to  all  appearances  a  simple  little  bourgeoise, 
and  with  her  sensuality  shatters  at  a  blow  all  of 
the  former  roue's  fine  resolutions,  at  a  time  when 
he  was  at  last  beginning  to  settle  down.  Scarcely 
has  Brigitte  Allain  set  foot  in  the  peaceful  home 
when  he  feels  his  butterfly  nature  returning,  as  he 
comes  to  know  the  pretty  attractive  creature.  And 
she  is  not  long  to  hold  out  against  his  advances. 
Meantime  Madame  Fontanet  learns  the  truth. 
But  the  weak  man,  the  man  of  pleasure,  sacrifices 
more  persons  than  one  in  his  fall:  his  son  is 
claimed  as  a  victim.  At  first  the  author  has  shown 
us  Augustin,  the  child  of  the  household,  an  impres- 
sionable and  sentimental  youth,  susceptible  and 
perhaps  Intelligent  beyond  his  years.  Uncon- 
sciously he  falls  in  love  with  Brigitte.  Convinced 
of  the  intrigue  between  his  father  and  the  woman 
he  adores  in  his  own  naive  way,  the  poor  child 
seeks  death  by  jumping  over  a  nearby  precipice. 

49 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

He  is  brought  to  his  parents  in  a  dying  condition. 
.  .  .  while  outside  a  tempest  rages.  .  .  .  Over 
the  body  of  her  dead  child  the  woman  curses  his 
executioner  who,  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  basest 
instincts,  had  not  hesitated  for  an  instant  to  sacri- 
fice the  two  beings  for  whom  he  ought  to  have 
sacrificed  everything.  But  love,  love  stronger 
than  all  else,  arrests  the  curse  on  the  outraged 
woman's  lips.  We  feel,  alas,  that  she  will  forgive 
him,  that  she  has  indeed  already  done  so." 

"  L' Amour  est  une  chose  et  le  bonheur  en  est 
une  autre " — "  love  is  one  thing,  happiness 
another  " —  says  Michel  in  this  play.  Porto- 
Riche  wrote  Amoureuse  and  Le  Vieil  Homme  to 
show  this.  Germaine  and  Therese  are  those 
women  who  love  the  deepest,  and  suffer  the  most, 
yet  somehow  the  poet  makes  us  feel  that  these  are 
just  the  ones  who  live  the  best  lives.  There  is  no 
question  of  moral  right  or  wrong;  Porto-Riche 
little  cares  to  discuss  the  question  whether  Ger- 
maine or  Therese  ought  to  leave  their  respective 
husbands;  he  tells  us  that  such  wives  do  not  leave 
them,  because  they  cannot. 

Porto-Riche  is  now  at  work  on  four  plays  ^ — 
V Amour  de  Manon,  Le  Paradis  perdu,  L'Eleve, 
and  La  Revanche  —  the  last  three  of  which  are  to 
be  collected  in  the  same  volume  with  Le  Vieil 
Homme,  under  the  general  title  of  Drames 
d' Amour  et  d'Amitie.  There  is  little  reason  to 
suppose  that  they  will  differ  radically  from  the 
earlier  plays,  so  that  any  judgment  now  formed 

1  A  little  one-act  comedy,  Zubiri,  was  produced  at  the  Comedie 
Royale  in  1912.  The  subject  was  taken  from  one  of  Victar 
Hugo's  poems. 

50 


GEORGES  DE  PORTO-RICHE 


of  this  dramatist  will  doubtless  hold  true  of  those 
works  to  come. 

The  author  of  Amoureuse  is  pretty  well  assured 
of  a  place  in  the  front  rank  of  the  dramatists  of 
his  generation;  his  sensitive  nature,  his  genius  for 
analysis  of  the  feminine  soul  —  be  it  in  man  or 
woman  —  his  gift  of  style,  his  ability  to  construct 
a  smooth  and  swift-moving  story,  entitle  him  to 
more  glory  than  would  his  entrance  into  the  Acad- 
emie  Frangaise,  an  honor  which  has  not  yet  been 
vouchsafed  to  him.  Yet  possibly  he  cherishes  the 
thought  of  being  the  Forty-first  Immortal,  together 
with  Balzac,  Daudet,  Maupassant,  and  Flaubert, 
and  is  content  to  remain  simply  the  "  conserva- 
teur  "  of  the  Bibliotheque  Mazarine,  the  windows 
of  which  overlook  the  Cupola  of  the  Academie,  he 
the  author  of  Amoureuse! 


51 


PAUL  HERVIEU 

There  are  few  contrasts  more  striking  than  that 
between  Porto-Riche  and  Paul  Hervieu:  on  the 
one  hand,  perfect  freedom  from  restraint  in  the 
consideration  and  treatment  of  human  passions, 
on  the  other,  almost  mathematical  precision  in  the 
delineation  of  men  and  women  struggling  with 
faulty  social  conditions  and  prejudices.  Porto- 
Riche  tells  a  love  story  for  the  sake  of  telling  it 
and  in  order  to  analyze  the  feelings  of  the  char- 
acters, Hervieu  tells  a  love-story,  if  such  it  can 
be  called,  in  which  passions  play  but  a  subordinate 
part.  Porto-Riche  is  interested  in  the  characters 
as  human  beings,  Hervieu  as  puppets  who  are  part 
of  a  larger  scheme  of  things.  Hervieu  delights 
in  showing  the  struggle,  Porto-Riche  the  con- 
testants. 

Paul  Hervieu  was  born  at  Neuilly-on-the-Seine 
in  1857.  His  early  education  was  of  a  frag- 
mentary character  for,  entering  the  Lycee  Bona- 
parte at  Paris  in  1869  he  was  soon  forced,  when 
the  War  of  1870  broke  out,  to  leave  for  Dieppe. 
From  that  city  he  attended  in  turn,  but  for  short 
periods  only,  schools  in  Boulogne-sur-mer,  then 
Fontainebleau,  and  at  last  returned  to  Paris,  and 
entered  the  Lycee  Condorcet.  After  the  comple- 
tion of  his  preliminary  studies,  he  became  a  student 

52 


PAUL  HERVIEU 


in  the  Law  School  from  which  he  was  graduated 
in  1 88 1,  assuming  a  position  in  a  law  office  im- 
mediately after.  Appointed  secretary  to  the  Mex- 
ican Embassy,  he  refused  that  honor,  preferring 
to  remain  in  his  native  country  and  assume  charge 
of  the  Republicain  de  Seine-et-Marne.  In  1882 
Hervieu's  first  book,  Diogene-le-Chien,  made  its 
appearance.  Guy  de  Maupassant  gave  it  high 
praise  and  predicted  that  the  author  would  "  soon 
be  known."  From  this  time  on  Hervieu  continued 
to  contribute  articles,  sketches,  and  stories,  to  the 
daily  papers;  a  number  of  these  were  later  pub- 
lished in  book  form.  Between  the  years  1881 
and  1896  he  put  forth  numerous  novels  and  further 
sketches  and  stories:  La  Betise  parisienne,  Les 
Yeux  verts  et  les  yeux  bleus,  L'Inconnu,  Les  Deux 
plaisanteries,  Flirt,  L'Exorcisee,  Peints  par  eux- 
memes,  U Armature  and  Le  Petit  Due.  His  first 
play.  Point  de  Lendemain,  an  adaptation  In  two 
scenes  of  a  story  by  Vivant  Denon,  was  produced 
in  1890.  Alphonse  Daudet  it  was  who  suggested 
the  writing  of  the  next  play,  which  was  Les  Pa- 
roles Restent,  a  "  dramatic  comedy  "  In  three  acts. 
This  was  produced  at  the  Vaudeville  In  1892. 
Three  years  later  the  youthful  playwright  achieved 
his  first  notable  success:  Les  Tenailles  received 
the  sanction  of  production  at  the  Comedle  Fran- 
galse,  the  austere  temple  of  French  Classicism. 
The  same  theater  stood  sponsor  for  the  next  two 
plays.  La  Lai  de  I'homme  and  VEnigme.  But  It 
was  La  Course  du  Flambeau  (given  by  Madame 
Rejane  at  the  Vaudeville)  that  was  destined  to 
make  its  author  famous  In  his  own  land  and  es- 
tablish his  reputation  on  a  firm  basis.     Theroigne 

53 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

de  Mericourt,  a  long  historical  drama  in  six  acts, 
was  played  by  Sarah  Bernhardt  at  her  own  theater. 
Le  Dedale,  one  of  Hervieu's  greatest  successes, 
was  seen  at  the  Comedie  the  following  year.  Le 
Reveil,  Modestie,  Connais-toi,  Bagatelle,  and  Le 
Destin  est  Maitre,  complete  the  list  of  plays. 

Member  of  the  Academie  Francaise,  president 
of  the  Society  of  Dramatic  Authors,  the  recipient 
of  most  of  tne  honors  that  can  be  accorded  to  a 
French  writer,  M.  Hervieu  is  held  in  the  highest 
esteem  by  his  contemporaries,  and  respected  by  the 
French  people  at  large. 

D'togene-le-Chien,  Hervieu's  first  work,  is  called 
a  novel;  it  is,  however,  a  philosophical  essay,  some- 
thing in  the  manner  of  the  quietly  ironical  and 
gently  cynical  "  novels  "  of  Anatole  France,  who 
was,  by  the  way,  much  pleased  with  the  work. 
The  book  Is  characterized  by  that  nervous,  high- 
pressure  and  somewhat  difficult  style  which  is  to 
be  found  in  Hervieu's  best  work,  plays  as  well  as 
novels.  U Armature  and  Peints  par  eux-memes 
are  among  the  finest  of  his  works  of  fiction,  and 
are  particularly  interesting  as  being  illustrative  of 
the  good  and  bad  quahties  of  all  his  writing. 
U Armature  is  clear  and  unified,  with  a  central  fig- 
ure round  which  moves  a  well-constructed  and  care- 
fully managed  story;  in  Peints  par  eux-memes  the 
story  is  perhaps  less  unified,  though  moving  and 
tense.  Certain  scenes  In  these  novels  have  been 
cited  as  coming  from  the  hand  of  a  man  who  was 
a  born  dramatist.  It  Is  at  least  significant  that 
M.  Brieux  has  made  a  play  out  of  L' Armature. 
Only  one  dramatic  work  of  Importance  preceded 
these  novels  —  Les  Paroles  Restent  —  and  that 

54 


PAUL  HERVIEU 


was  scarcely  indicative  of  the  more  mature  work  to 
come. 

Although  his  novels  have  brought  him  a  certain 
measure  of  fame,  it  is  as  a  writer  of  plays  that 
Hervieu  is  preeminently  known.  He  and  Brieux 
are  the  greatest  living  exponents  of  the  "  thesis  " 
play;  neither  ever  wrote  a  play  without  having 
some  distinct  and  more  or  less  immediate  purpose 
in  view.  If  this  purpose  was  not  the  righting  of 
a  wrong,  it  was  at  least  the  illustration  of  some 
law  of  nature  bearing  directly  upon  a  social  abuse 
or  "  professional  bias."  Both  writers  are  actu- 
ated by  a  desire  to  benefit  mankind,  either  by  point- 
ing out  the  road  to  improvement  or  —  as  is  more 
frequently  the  case  —  by  showing  the  pitfalls  on 
the  road  to  evil.  Hervieu,  himself  a  lawyer,  in 
some  of  his  best  plays  attacks  the  law  because  he 
considers  it  in  many  respects  unjust,  unsuited  to  the 
varying  needs  of  capricious  men  and  women; 
Brieux  attacks  all  authority  because  he  is  convinced 
that  "  in  human  hands  it  tends  to  become  tyr- 
anny." As  an  artist,  by  reason  of  his  distinctive 
style  and  more  fastidious  sense  of  form,  Hervieu 
must  be  conceded  the  superior  of  Brieux,  but  Brieux 
Is  more  human,  brutally  powerful,  more  personal 
and  acrimonious  —  and  consequently,  at  times  per- 
haps, a  little  one-sided.  But  Brieux  is  on  the 
whole  just  and  logical  (that  is,  if  we  accept  his 
point  of  view),  but  the  reticent  and  austere 
Hervieu  has  weighed  his  words  well,  and  when  he 
speaks  we  may  be  sure  to  have  a  fair  statement. 
Perhaps  this  very  passion  for  logical  perfection 
in  Hervieu  lessens  the  value  of  his  plays  as  human 
documents;  certainly  La  Course  du  Flambeau  is 

ss 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

more  like  a  mathematical  theorem  than  a  series  of 
incidents  from  life  molded  into  a  harmonious 
whole.  All  Hervieu's  plays  are  often  criticised 
for  their  almost  too  perfect  balance,  and  their  con- 
sequent lack  of  the  human  element;  and  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  in  the  play  just  mentioned,  and  in 
Les  Tenailles  and  La  Lot  de  I'homme,  Hervieu 
has  overestimated  the  exigencies  of  his  theme  and 
assumed  the  role  rather  of  scientific  expositor  than 
that  of  a  critic  of  life.  But  in  spite  of  an  occa- 
sional too  rigid  adherence  to  the  logic  of  his  plot 
and  a  too  great  insistence  on  the  formal  precision 
of  his  ideas,  Hervieu  has  accomplished  more  for 
the  cause  of  his  art  than  almost  any  other  of  his 
contemporaries.  In  Brunetiere's  Address  on  the 
Reception  of  Hervieu  into  the  Academic  Frangaise, 
he  states  that  the  plays  of  the  young  writer  marked 
an  epoch  in  the  theater  of  the  day,  bringing  once 
more  as  they  did  true  tragedy  in  modern  guise  to 
the  contemporaneous  stage.  And  it  is  for  this 
reason,  as  well  as  because  of  the  intrinsic  value  of 
the  plays  that  Hervieu  will  be  remembered.  Not 
content  merely  with  the  depiction  of  character  in 
action,  or  with  the  consideration  of  present-day 
problems,  he  has  effected  a  return  to  the  eternal 
struggles,  having  root  in  all  mankind:  between 
parent  and  child,  love  and  duty,  will-power  and 
inclination.  If  he  places  his  personages  in  a 
twentieth  century  environment  and  sets  them  con- 
tending with  modern  conditions,  it  is  only  that  he 
may  bring  his  audience  into  closer  sympathy  with 
him  than  if  he  were  to  adopt  the  conventional 
magnificence  and  pomp  of  classical  tragedy. 
"  Nowadays,"  says  M.  Hervieu,  "  we  try  to  show 

56 


PAUL  HERVIEU 


how  the  struggle  for  existence  bears  down  inexor- 
ably upon  those  who  are  imprudent,  too  weak  to 
defend  themselves,  those  whose  passions  are 
stronger  than  their  will  to  resist  them."  And  by 
way  of  illustration  of  this  statement  he  has  written 
at  least  two  plays  that  may  fairly  be  accounted 
among  the  finest  of  modern  tragedies:  Le  De- 
dale  and  La  Course  du  Flambeau.  In  the  former, 
the  very  essence  of  the  tragedy  is  its  inevitable- 
ness :  in  the  heart  of  humanity  is  the  love  of  parent 
for  child,  and  the  external  forces  that  tend  to  in- 
terfere with  this  deeply-imbedded  instinct  are 
bound  to  fail.  In  the  latter,  the  element  of  fate 
is  no  less  predominant;  here  the  love  of  mother 
for  daughter  drives  a  woman  to  kill  her  own 
mother.  The  play  ends  with  the  words :  "  For 
my  daughter  I  have  killed  my  mother." 

Of  the  remaining  plays,  Les  Tenailles, 
UEnigme,  Le  Reveil,  Connais-toi  and  Bagatelle, 
are  the  most  important.  La  Lot  de  I'homme  and 
Les  Paroles  Restent  are  early  works  of  only  rela- 
tive merit;  Point  de  Lendemain,  merely  an  adapta- 
tion, Theroigne  de  Mericourt,  a  historical  drama, 
and  Alodestie,  a  delightful  one-act  trifle.  Con- 
sidering the  plays  in  chronological  order,  and  omit- 
ting Point  de  Lendemain,  we  come  first  to  Les 
Paroles  Restent. 

The  choice  of  theme  is  significant:  a  man  starts 
a  slanderous  story  about  a  young  woman.  The 
story,  it  turns  out  later,  is  without  foundation. 
He  falls  in  love  with  the  woman,  and  confesses 
that  he  was  the  instigator  of  the  story,  and  she 
leaves  him.  There  is  a  duel,  the  man  is  severely 
wounded  and,  just  before  he  dies,  he  is  made  to 

57 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

feel  the  terrible  irony  of  circumstances,  for  he 
hears  the  last  echo  of  his  thoughtless  gossip. 
Words  remain!  The  impossibility  of  escaping 
the  consequences  of  our  deeds  is  a  subject  for  true 
tragedy :  it  is  a  theme  which  Hervieu  later  worked 
out  on  a  larger  scale. 

Les  Tenailles,  a  more  mature  work,  is  the  story 
of  a  woman  who,  having  ceased  to  love  her  hus- 
band, tells  him  she  is  in  love  with  another  man  and 
wishes  to  go  away  with  him.  The  husband,  who 
loves  his  wife  as  little  as  she  does  him,  refuses  to 
let  her  go;  "  the  wife  is  prisoner  to  the  husband." 
At  the  end  of  ten  years,  after  the  birth  of  a  child, 
a  dispute  arises  over  his  education.  In  the  heat 
of  the  argument,  the  woman  tells  her  husband  that 
the  child  is  not  his,  but  hers  by  the  man  she  for- 
merly loved.  The  husband  is  now  willing  to  grant 
his  wife  the  divorce  for  which  she  asked  ten  years 
ago,  but  this  time  she  refuses:  she  must  have  pro- 
tection for  herself  and  her  child.  She  cannot 
leave  now.  "  They  must  go  hand  in  hand  man- 
acled to  the  end,  let  the  nippers  gall  as  they  will. 
There  is  the  child.  Its  future  is  at  stake." — "  We 
are  only  two  wretched  people,"  says  the  wife, 
"  and  misery  knows  only  equals."  A  greater 
sureness  of  touch  in  the  handling  of  the  dialogue 
and  particular  scenes  and  a  finer  insight  into  char- 
acter enter  into  the  composition  of  this  play  than 
into  the  preceding. 

La  Lot  de  I'homme  is  an  attack  upon  man-made 
laws;  those  articles  in  the  code  which  accord  the 
right  to  the  father,  and  not  to  the  mother,  to  con- 
sent to  the  marriage  of  the  child,  and  that  fail  to 
place  husband  and  wife  upon  an  equal  legal  foot- 

58 


PAUL  HERVIEU 


Ing  in  the  question  of  marital  infidelity,  are  the  butt 
of  this  acrimonious  feminist  play. 

L'Enigme  is  chiefly  interesting  because  it  vio- 
lates one  of  the  "  laws  "  of  dramatic  technique 
which  was  formerly  supposed  to  be  inviolable: 
never  keep  a  secret  from  the  audience.  One  of 
two  sisters-in-law  is  unfaithful  to  her  husband. 
Which?  That  is  the  enigma  which  is  not  solved 
until  the  close  of  the  play.  With  the  utmost  skill 
the  author  contrives  to  keep  his  audience  in  sus- 
pense, and  in  this  he  succeeds,  with  the  result,  how- 
ever, that  the  interest  of  the  play  lies  almost  en- 
tirely in  the  effort  to  solve  the  mystery  which  is, 
after  all,  of  comparatively  small  importance. 

Theroigne  de  Mericourt,  Hervieu's  only  at- 
tempt in  the  field  of  historical  drama,  was  highly 
successful;  by  reason  of  its  character  portrayal, 
its  vividness  and  its  power,  its  dignity,  and  the  ex- 
cellence of  its  literary  style,  it  ranks  as  one  of  the 
best  modern  plays  of  its  kind. 

Le  Dedale  is,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  Hervieu's 
masterpiece,  hes  Tenailles  can  hardly  claim  the 
title:  it  is  too  bald;  nor  can  La  Course  du  Flam- 
beau, which  is  too  "  sketchy."  Both  are  marked 
by  a  brevity  which  is  at  times  Irritating,  and  a  lack 
of  the  broad  spirit  of  humanity  which  informs  Le 
Dedale.  This  play  contains  at  least  two  admir- 
able and  truly  pathetic  and  tragic  figures,  Mari- 
anne and  Guillaume,  and  the  theme  is  allowed  to 
develop  through  the  agency  of  the  unfortunate 
characters,  and  not  according  to  the  incorrigible 
demands  of  the  dramatist. 

Marianne  is  the  divorced  wife  of  Max  de  Pogls, 
by  whom  she  has  one  young  son.     When  the  play 

59 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

opens  Marianne  is  on  the  point  of  acceding  to  the 
demands  of  Guillaume  Le  Breuil,  a  sincere  and 
gallant  suitor  for  her  hand.  There  are  but  two 
possible  obstacles  to  the  union:  Marianne's 
Catholic  mother,  for  whom  divorce  does  not  exist, 
and  Marianne's  fear  that  her  love  for  Guillaume 
is  not  so  great  as  it  should  be.  But  she  at  length 
gives  in.  One  day,  after  the  marriage,  Max's 
mother  comes  to  Marianne  to  intercede  in  favor 
of  her  son,  who  wishes  to  have  a  voice  in  the  edu- 
cation of  his  son;  indeed,  he  demands  "  an  equal 
share  "  of  the  child's  time.  Marianne  at  first  re- 
bels, but  as  the  law  is  against  her  —  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  she  divorced  Max  on  the  ground  of  in- 
fidelity—  and  as  she  permits  herself  to  be  per- 
suaded by  her  former  husband  in  person,  she  con- 
sents to  allow  the  boy  to  be  taken,  in  company  with 
Max  and  Madame  de  Pogis  to  their  country  estate 
for  a  few  weeks.  The  third  act  brings  us  to  the 
chateau  where  the  little  fellow  has  contracted 
diphtheria,  and  is  now  convalescing.  Meantime 
Marianne  has  undergone  a  strange  transforma- 
tion: her  constant  association  with  the  father  of 
her  child  over  the  sick-bed  has  caused  old  mem- 
ories to  arise  and  before  she  knows  it,  she  finds 
that  she  still  loves  Max.  As  she  is  about  to  leave 
for  Paris  to  return  to  her  husband.  Max  comes  to 
her  room. 

Max.  This  is  what  I  want  to  tell  you.  I  was  once 
unfaithful  to  you,  before  we  were  separated;  it  hurt,  it 
sufiEocated  me.  I  should  not  have  had  the  courage  to  con- 
tinue much  longer.  If  you  hadn't  found  out  my  miscon- 
duct almost  as  soon  as  it  began,  I  should  very  soon  have 

60 


PAUL  HERVIEU 


stopped  of  my  own  accord.  But  I  lost  my  head  when  the 
blow  came.  Instead  of  seeing  myself  as  the  only  cause 
of  trouble  between  us,  I  was  angry  with  you  for  having 
found  me  out.  I  hated  you  because  you  forced  me  to 
recognize  that  I  had  committed  a  crime! 

Marianne.  [Indignantly.}  You  made  me  responsi- 
ble!    Me!     You  accused  me!     Me! 

Max.  I  am  merely  confessing.  ...  I  was  ready  to 
plunge  into  any  abyss  of  iniquity  when  I  felt  the  sting  of 
your  revenge.  You  insulted  in  public  the  woman  who 
had  wronged  you;  that  killed  her  at  once,  socially,  in  our 
circle  and  in  hers.  ...  I  was  forced  into  that  marriage:  it 
was  a  kind  of  reparation  for  what  I  had  done.  And  that 
is  how,  after  my  little  fling,  I  was  dragged  on  and  on, 
regretting  more  and  more  that  I  lost  you. 

Marianne.  When  I  first  heard  of  your  misconduct, 
you  should  have  done  everything  to  calm  me,  to  regain 
my  affection. 

Max.  .  .  .  Marianne,  if  I  hadn't  implicitly  believed 
your  protestations,  if  I  had  doubted,  or  tried  harder  to 
protect  myself  .  .  .  could  you  have  forgiven  me? 

Marianne.  How  can  I  tell?  Who  knows  what 
might  have  happened  at  such  a  time?  I  was  wild  with 
grief,  desperate  —  I  threw  myself  on  that  sofa,  as  if  I  had 
been  shot  — 

Max.     God,  what  I  made  you  suiifer ! 

Marianne.  .  .  .  The  hours  that  night  passed  by 
while  I  lay  in  a  trance  .  .  . 

Max.     .  .  .  Marianne,  Marianne,  forgive  me! 

Marianne.     .  .  .  [She  bursts  into  sobs.]     .  .  . 

Max.  Marianne!  I  was  impulsive,  hateful,  but  I 
have  never  loved  any  one  but  you !  Every  thought  of  love 
has  been  for  you,  for  you  alone ! 

Marianne.  You  lie!  [Coming  back  to  reality.} 
Leave  me ! 

Max.     No,  don't  say  that! 

6i 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Marianne.  [Going  from  him.}  You  have  carried 
me  off  my  feet !  I'm  not  well,  I  don't  know  what  I'm  say- 
ing!    I'm  not  myself! 

Max.  Oh,  yes,  you  are  just  the  same  as  you  were  the 
evening  of  our  marriage,  with  your  hair  down  that  way, 
and  your  shoulders  bare!  You  are  trembling,  you  know 
what  I  want! 

Marianne.  You  know  I  can  be  nothing  to  you! 
Leave  me,  pity  me !     Don't  torture  me ! 

Max.  No,  Marianne,  your  grief  is  over.  The  only 
evil  memory  you  had  left  has  been  buried  in  this  room. 
.  .  .  Even  if  I  said  nothing,  you  would  still  hear  the  echo 
of  our  kisses  again  — 

Marianne.     I  don't  want  to  hear  — 

Max.  Yes,  yes,  you  do !  Listen  to  the  air  vibrate  with 
our  love!  Think  of  our  dear  child,  of  his  hopes,  of  his 
very  life,  which  first  came  into  being  in  this  very  room ! 

Marianne.  How  could  you  leave  me?  Why  did 
you  do  it  ?     Why  are  you  no  longer  my  husband  ? 

Max.  During  these  last  days,  when  we  protected  our 
child  from  death,  didn't  you  feel  it  was  our  very  love  that 
we  were  bringing  back  to  life  again? 

Marianne.  It's  true,  I  couldn't  resist  the  thought. 
Yes,  I  felt  it! 

Max.  Ah,  I  knew!  In  the  supreme  joy  we  experi- 
enced in  the  recovery  of  the  boy,  there  came  the  rebirth 
of  love  to  you  and  me.  Don't  struggle  against  it  any 
longer.  I  am  the  father  of  your  little  one,  the  father  who 
agonized  with  you  for  him,  and  fought  with  my  whole 
soul.  To-night,  when  we  are  no  longer  afraid,  when  we 
deserve  happiness,  the  father  is  brought  again  to  the 
mother !     Take  me !     I  adore  you  —  oh,  take  me ! 

Marianne.     [Feebly  resisting.}     1  am  yours! 

But  Marianne  cannot  return  to  Gulllaume,  nor  can 
she  live  with  Max,  whom  she  loathes.  Guillaume 
learns  of  her  infidelity,  and  sets  out  to  find  Max. 

62 


PAUL  HERVIEU 


The  last  act  takes  place  on  a  high  terrace,  above 
a  deep  cataract  of  the  Rhone.  Max  has  been  in 
the  neighborhood  for  some  time,  trying  to  meet 
Marianne,  and  one  evening  he  comes  to  the  ter- 
race. But  Guillaume,  intercepting  the  letter  in 
which  he  tells  of  his  coming,  meets  his  rival. 
"  There  is  a  quick  struggle.  Under  the  weight  of 
the  men,  the  wooden  railing  gives  way:  Max  and 
Guillaume  fall  down  into  the  chasm.  The  voice 
of  Marianne  is  heard  in  the  distance.  .  .  .  Lit- 
tle Louis,  for  whom  the  mother  is  looking,  runs 
in.  '  Come  here,  my  life !  My  love  I  .  .  .' 
Along  the  edge  of  the  precipice,  below  which  are 
the  vast  silence  and  the  peace  of  death,  the  mother 
takes  the  child  toward  the  house  where  he,  in  his 
turn,  will  grow  into  manhood  and  work  out  his 
destiny." 

In  no  other  play  has  Hervieu  attained  and  pre- 
served so  great  a  height  of  sympathetic  and  pas- 
sionate emotional  power,  nor  exposed  the  relent- 
less working-out  of  human  motives  struggling  with 
forces  greater  than  they;  nowhere  else  has  he  sus- 
tained his  interest  and  developed  his  story  simul- 
taneously, with  so  sure  a  hand.  Faults  the  play 
has,  faults  of  style  and  faults  of  technique,  while 
the  denouement  has  often  been  severely  censured. 
Hervieu  himself  once  said:  "I  have  always 
avoided  arbitrary  endings  (the  punishment  of  vice 
and  the  reward  of  virtue)  and  opportune  deaths, 
whereby  in  the  last  act  those  who  are  in  the  way 
are  fortunately  disposed  of."  After  this  affirma- 
tion, it  Is  impossible  to  conceive  Hervieu's  so  con- 
tradicting himself  as  to  use  the  suicide-murder  of 
Max  and  Guillaume  as  a  facile  expedient  to  rid 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

himself  of  "  those  who  are  in  the  way."  His 
reasons  must  have  lain  deeper.  Consider  Mari- 
anne's position :  if  she  dies,  the  child  remains,  and 
also  the  two  husbands;  if  Guillaume  dies,  she  is  at 
the  mercy  of  Max,  against  whom  her  innate  mod- 
esty rebels;  if  Max  dies,  it  must  be  by  Guillaume's 
hand  —  but  then  Guillaume  would  remain,  with 
his  crime  and  Marianne's  infidelity  to  keep  the  two 
apart.  What  remains?  Both  must  die,  for  the 
good  of  Marianne  and  for  the  good  of  the  child. 
This  is  therefore  the  natural,  the  inevitable  solu- 
tion. Yet  somehow  it  seems  unsatisfactory,  es- 
pecially, as  M.  Adolphe  Brisson  —  the  critic  of 
the  Temps  —  points  out,  as  the  catastrophe  is  de- 
pendent upon  Guillaume's  superior  strength,  for 
what  if  Max  had  been  the  stronger?  This  is  a 
serious  criticism,  but  as  the  solution  is  a  just  one, 
the  means  employed  to  that  end  are  of  compara- 
tive insignificance.  The  play  as  a  whole  is  grip- 
ping, vital,  true;  it  is,  in  Mr.  Huneker's  words, 
"  a  great  section  of  throbbing,  real  life." 

Le  Reveil  is  the  most  abstract  and  "  intellec- 
tual "  of  the  plays.  The  theme  is  a  subtle  one  for 
dramatic  use :  "  There  are  certain  crises  in  our 
lives,"  says  Antoine  Benoist,  "  when  it  may  be  said 
that  we  are  no  longer  ourselves;  carried  away 
either  by  enthusiasm  or  by  a  great  wave  of  pas- 
sion, we  are  capable  of  performing  acts  —  good 
or  evil  —  that  before  or  after,  appear  to  us  ut- 
terly out  of  keeping  with  our  character.  Such 
are  the  sudden  and  violent  crises  that  ordinarily 
serve  as  subjects  for  the  writer  of  dramas  and 
tragedies.  But  suppose  that  the  moment  before 
the  catastrophe,  when  two  lovers  are  about  to  ruin 

64 


PAUL  HERVIEU 


their  lives,  a  sudden  light  illumines  the  abyss  yawn- 
ing at  their  feet."  Here  is  the  "  awakening  " 
which  the  author  treats  of  in  Le  Reveil.  The 
woman  who  is  willing  to  leave  husband  and  child 
for  the  man  she  loves  suddenly  sees  the  full  ex- 
tent and  import  of  the  crime  she  is  about  to  com- 
mit, and  tells  her  lover:  "No,  I  am  no  longer 
the  woman  to  whom  you  were  everything.  I 
thought  you  were  dead,  and  I  saw  that  I  must 
continue  to  live,  if  not  for  myself,  at  least  for  my 
husband  and  my  child." 

Connais-toi  marks  a  return  to  the  earlier  choice 
of  theme:  man  is  feeble,  for  he  does  not  know 
himself;  has  he  therefore  the  right  to  judge 
others?  As  In  La  Course  du  Flambeau  the  cen- 
tral idea  Is  epitomized  in  the  final  speech  of  the 
play;  in  this  case:  "Who  knows  himself?" 
General  de  Siberan,  a  man  of  the  strictest  prin- 
ciples, infallible  in  his  own  estimation  in  questions 
of  honor  and  morahty,  believes  that  a  guest  in  his 
home  is  carrying  on  a  clandestine  love  affair  with 
another  of  his  guests,  Madame  Doncieres;  he  in- 
sists that  the  lieutenant  leave  at  once.  But  it  is 
not  long  before  he  learns  that  his  own  son  Is  the 
offender;  the  son  Is  not  however  sent  away. 
Doncieres,  the  woman's  husband,  asks  the  Gen- 
eral's advice,  and  determines  to  divorce  his  wife. 
After  Doncieres  leaves,  the  General  surprises  his 
own  wife  in  the  arms  of  the  lieutenant.  The  blow 
paralyzes  him,  and  he  can  only  forgive  and  ask, 
"Who  knows  himself?" 

Bagatelle  shows  greater  flexibility  than  any  of 
the  preceding  plays.  It  appears  that  the  author, 
weary  of  that  careful  planning  and  precision  which 

65 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

characterized  such  works  as  Les  Tenailles  and  La 
Course  du  Flambeau,  wished  to  write  a  comedy  of 
manners,  and  in  a  more  leisurely  fashion  elaborate 
characters  for  their  own  sake.  The  curious  point 
about  this  play  is  that  it  is  made  up  of  interesting 
and  picturesque  fragments;  the  theme  is  neither 
very  clear  nor  convincing.  A  number  of  couples 
play  at  love  — "  Bagatelle  " —  some  are  scorched, 
but  they  are  assured  that  time  heals  all  wounds. 
Bagatelle  is  fuller  of  promise  of  a  new  manner 
than  an  actual  achievement.  It  stands  in  relation 
to  Hervieu's  works  much  as  does  Brieux's  Le 
Bourgeois  aux  champs,  indicating  that  the  author 
is  not  too  old  to  change,  and  change  for  the  better. 
The  latest  play  is  Le  Destin  est  Maitre,  a  trag- 
edy in  two  acts.  It  was  first  produced  —  in  a 
translation  by  the  spirituel  Benavente  —  in  Ma- 
drid, during  the  season  of  1 9 1 4.  Not  many  weeks 
later,  it  was  seen  —  together  with  Flers  and  Cail- 
lavet's  Monsieur  Bretonneau  —  in  Paris,  on  the 
boards  of  the  Porte  Saint-Martin.  Le  Destin  est 
Maitre  —  the  very  title  is  unmistakably  Her- 
vieuesque  —  is  a  swift-moving  and  compact  play. 
The  first  act  —  it  comprises  but  two  —  reveals  to 
us  the  faithful  and  high-minded  Juliane  Bereuil, 
whose  husband,  at  the  time  away  from  home,  is 
about  to  come  to  trial  on  a  charge  of  embezzle- 
ment. Juliane's  brother,  Severin,  attempts  to 
regulate  matters,  and  save  if  possible  the  honor  of 
the  family.  Gaetan,  the  husband,  comes  from 
Paris  in  order  to  obtain  the  funds  necessary  for  his 
escape  from  the  country;  but  his  brother  will  not 
permit  him  this  easy  method  of  escape:  he  must 
face  the  music  or  kill  himself.     There  is  a  ter- 

66 


PAUL  HERVIEU 


rible  scene  between  the  two;  then  Severin  shoots 
his  brother-in-law.  Juliane,  who  has  been  absent 
meanwhile,  praying  in  a  nearby  church,  learns  the 
truth  from  her  brother.  But  the  brother,  unable 
to  remain  longer  in  the  presence  of  the  woman  and 
her  children  whom  his  sense  of  honor  has  so  sorely 
stricken,  gives  up  his  rank  in  the  army,  and  goes 
to  join  the  Foreign  Legion. 

The  play  is  too  summary,  it  smacks  a  little  too 
much  of  the  Les  Tenailles  rigidity;  it  is  certainly 
no  advance  upon  that  early  play.  Bagatelle  gave 
hopes  of  a  new  manner,  a  brighter  mood. 


67 


HENRI  LAVEDAN 

Henri  Lavedan  is  a  painter  of  contemporary 
manners  with  an  extraordinary  endowment  of  that 
quality,  very  difficult  to  define,  which  the  French 
call  esprit.     He  is  also  something  of  a  moralist. 

Alfred  Capus  is  a  painter  of  manners,  but  he 
rarely  digs  beneath  the  surface  of  things.  Half  a 
dozen  French  dramatists  of  the  day  possess  keen 
senses  of  humor  at  least  the  equal  of  that  of  Lave- 
dan. And  Brieux  is  certainly  a  moralist.  Yet 
Lavedan  resembles  none  of  his  contemporaries. 
Perhaps  this  isolation  is  partly  the  result  of  his 
birth  and  early  education.  A  born  bourgeois  as 
to  class,  he  lived  in  a  family  where  "  the  highest 
ideals  and  the  strictest  sense  of  what  was  fitting 
were  of  long  and  traditional  standing."  Add  to 
this,  a  good  education,  with  few  obstacles  to  be 
overcome,  and  we  find  the  youthful  Lavedan  in  a 
position  to  see  the  life  of  his  time  in  a  clear  and 
steady  light.  Capus,  by  reason  of  his  compara- 
tively narrow  education,  Brieux,  because  of  his  pre- 
occupation with  social  questions,  and  also  of  his 
birth  and  breeding,  Donnay,  warped  a  little  by  too 
close  application  to  the  erotic  —  all  lack  the  out- 
look of  their  more  fortunate  confrere.  With 
equal  sureness  of  touch  and  sympathy  he  can  show 
us  the  intimate  life  of  the  full-blooded  aristocrat 
{Le  Prince  d'Aurec)^  and  the  unfortunate  little 

68 


HENRI  LAVEDAN 


bourgeoise  music-teacher  (Catherine)  ;  he  can  en- 
ter into  the  sentiments  of  the  "  viveur,"  and  then 
turn  round  and  condemn  him  with  all  the  impre- 
cations of  an  enraged  Brieux  (Le  Marquis  de 
Priola) .  Where  Hervieu  sketches  a  shadow,  a 
lay-figure,  Lavedan  paints  a  portrait;  where 
Brieux  criticizes  a  condition  of  affairs,  Lavedan 
makes  a  living  story  of  it.  But  Lavedan  has  dis- 
tinct limitations;  for  if  little  Catherine  is  well- 
drawn  and  sympathetic,  she  is,  we  feel,  too  good  to 
be  true.  If  Le  Duel  be  a  supremely  skillful  piece 
of  technique  and  an  interesting  psychological 
study,  its  end  is  weak  and  unconvincing. 

Lavedan  is  an  unequal  writer;  his  occasional 
shortcomings  are  probably  more  noticeable  than 
those  of  most  of  his  fellow-writers.  It  seems  that 
he  has  never  been  quite  sure  as  to  what  style  of 
work  he  was  best  fitted.  About  twenty  years 
after  the  production  of  his  first  play,  he  was  still 
searching  for  new  ways  of  presenting  his  material. 
Character-drawing  is  his  supreme  gift.  When  we 
think  of  the  bulk  of  his  work,  we  forget  the  weak 
plots  of  some  of  the  plays,  the  faulty  technique  of 
many  of  them,  and  think  only  of  the  three  or  four 
commanding  figures  for  which  he  will  long  be  re- 
membered: Le  Prince  d'Aurec,  Le  Marquis  de 
Priola,  and  Paul  Costard. 

A  few  lines  will  suffice  to  render  a  brief  account 
of  the  life  of  Lavedan.  Born  at  Orleans  In  1859, 
he  was  sent  first  to  a  small  seminary  not  far  from 
his  native  town, •  then  to  the  Lycee  Louis-le-Grand 
and  the  Institution  Bossuet  at  Paris,  and  later 
to  Jesuit  schools  at  Nantes  and  Poitiers.  He  re- 
turned to  Paris  from  the  provinces  to  finish  his 

69 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

studies,  when  the  War  of  1870  broke  out. 
Henri's  father  placed  the  youth  in  the  hands  of 
the  priests,  with  whom  Henri  remained  during  the 
terrible  siege  and  the  Commune.  At  the  end  of 
those  troublous  times,  he  was  graduated,  and  im- 
mediately agreed  to  the  wishes  of  his  parents,  who 
had  determined  to  make  a  lawyer  of  him ;  but  one 
year  of  law  was  so  disagreeable,  that  upon  passing 
his  examinations,  he  refused  to  continue  to  work 
for  a  profession  which  was  obviously  so  little  in 
accordance  with  his  inclination  and  ability. 

At  this  period,  for  the  first  time,  Lavedan  be- 
gan to  experience  some  of  the  hardships  of  life 
in  Paris  which  are  usually  the  lot  of  young  men 
without  a  profession.  He  was  not  long,  however, 
in  making  a  way  for  himself  in  the  field  in  which 
he  was  destined  to  succeed. 

Among  his  first  literary  efforts  were  numerous 
little  dialogues  —  of  a  type  which  he  has  con- 
tinued to  write  to  this  day  — :  diminutive  quarts 
d'heure,  which  made  their  appearance  from  time 
to  time  in  newspapers  and  magazines.  But 
printed  dialogues  hardly  make  a  dramatist.  One 
day  he  showed  some  of  these  trifles  to  the  ever- 
ready  and  enterprising  Antoine,  who  produced 
them  at  his  Theatre  Libre,  to  the  horror  of  many 
members  of  the  critical  world,  who  considered  the 
little  "  scenes "  as  decadent  tag-ends  of  plays. 
Lavedan  himself  realized  that  they  were  not  very 
ambitious  efforts,  and  set  to  work  on  a  serious 
long  play,  line  Famille,  which  had  the  good  luck 
to  be  accepted  by  the  Comedie  Francaise  and 
played  in  1891.  The  play  is  not  a  significant  one, 
except  that  it  proved  that  Lavedan  was  able  to  con- 

70 


HENRI  LAVEDAN 


struct  a  full-length  play  and  hold  the  interest  of 
the  audience.  Yet  the  "  dialogue  "  style  was  still 
to  be  observed  in  this  larger  fabric;  line  Famille 
was  in  reality  a  cleverly  strung  series  of  conversa- 
tions. It  may  be  well  to  look  into  one  or  two  of 
these  trifles,  for  they  give  evidence  of  some  of  the 
chief  qualities  of  the  writer ;  observation  of  details, 
and  skill  in  dialogue. 

Paul  and  his  sister  Frangoise  meet  early  one 
morning;  she  is  coming  home  from  the  ball,  he 
from  the  club.  Paul  has  lost  a  good  deal  of 
money,  while  she  has  been  "  fearfully  bored." 
He  tells  his  sister  that  if  she  fails  to  appreciate 
the  men  she  meets  at  dances  she  may  lose  her 
chance  of  marrying. 

Franqoise.     I  tell  you,  I  despise  the  whole  lot ! 

Paul.  Of  course,  but  that  is  no  reason  for  not  marry- 
ing one  of  them. 

Franqoise.     Think  so? 

Paul.  Lord!  —  Of  course!  Take  the  least  impossi- 
ble one.  He'll  improve  with  age,  settle  down,  and  in  a 
year  or  a  year  and  a  half,  when  he'll  be  merely  a  father 
to  you,  well,  you'll  have  a  very  nice,  respectable  little  hus- 
band. 

Franqoise.  I  tell  you,  I  have  other  ideas  on  the  ques- 
tion of  marriage.  Mine  will  be  a  marriage  of  inclination 
—  pleasure. 

Paul.  Impossible!  I've  given  the  matter  more 
thought  than  you  may  perhaps  imagine,  and  I  have  come 
to  this  profound  conclusion,  little  girl:  that  all  necessary 
things  —  like  getting  born,  and  eating,  and  loving  —  it's 
all  a  pose,  a  nasty  pose.  People  try  to  make  it  attractive, 
put  seasoning  into  it  —  but  — !  It's  dressed  up  and  set 
to  music,  but  the  sauces  don't  last  forever:  you've  got  to 
swallow  the  terrible  fish.     Marriage  is  one  of  the  fish,  just 

71 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

like  birth  and  death  —  ...  A  gay  life  we  lead,  we  must 
admit!  And  we  look  the  part!  You're  green,  little 
sister ! 

Franqoise.     And  you  violet! 

Paul.     It's  the  dawn  that  makes  us  look  like  that. 

Franqoise.  The  dawn  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  Our 
faces  only  reflect  our  souls  —  that's  the  truth  of  the  matter. 

Paul.     Our  souls?     Our  souls? 

Franqoise.     Don't  you  believe  in  the  soul? 

Paul.     Yes,  little  sister,  when  I'm  sick,  otherwise  — 

Franqoise,     What  ? 

Paul.  Nothing.  I  believe  that  we  are  put  into  the 
world  to  go  through  a  number  of  motions  which  are  al- 
ways the  same;  which  must  be  gone  through  at  the  same 
time  —  and  then  we  all  fade  away  — 

In  Every  Evening  {Scene  de  tous  les  soirs) 
three  clubmen  are  gathered  together  at  two  in  the 
morning,  and  inquire  what  they  can  do  to  kill  time. 

VouvANS.     Well,  what  are  we  doing  now? 

D'Argentay.     Yes,  what?  .  .  . 

Coutras.     We're  living:  this  is  life. 
'VouvANS.     We've  been  doing  the  same  thing  together 
for  the  past  twelve  years. 

D'Argentay.     And  we're  not  tired  of  it.     Curious! 

VouvANS.  But  most  curious  of  all  is  to  think  that  in 
twenty  years'  time  we  shall  be  just  as  amused  by  this  as 
we  are  now  —  perhaps  more. 

D'Argentay.  Very  possibly.  I  remember,  I  once 
met  a  poor  girl  in  the  street,  pale,  sickly-looking.  I  said 
to  her,  "You  must  h6  tired  of  it  all,  aren't  you?"  She 
said  with  a  smile,  "  No,  I  rather  like  it ;  I  get  used  to  it 
from  day  to  day." 

VouvANS.     Well  —  what  are  we  doing? 

D'Argentay.  Something  very  Parisian:  we're  smok- 
ing.    Voila ! 

72 


HENRI  LAVEDAN 


Here  Is  Lavedan  the  moralist.  Where  Capus 
observes  life  and  passes  by  without  comment, 
Lavedan  points  a  lesson;  Capus  laughs  with  or  at 
his  wastrels  and  "  flaneurs,"  Lavedan  allows  them 
to  drop  remarks  revealing  tragic  depths.  The 
little  conversation  between  Paul  and  Frangoise  is  a 
case  in  question.  Lavedan  delights  in  showing  us 
the  boulevardier,  the  clubman,  the  Don  Juan,  the 
fop;  but  he  rarely  fails  to  show  both  sides  of  his 
character.  In  the  plays  these  sketches  become  ex- 
panded, the  portraits  are  more  detailed.  The 
plot,  in  nearly  every  case,  serves  largely  as  frame- 
work; character  is  of  supreme  importance. 

Le  Nouveau  Jeu  is  probably  the  most  amusing 
play  Lavedan  ever  wrote.  In  it,  that  type  of  bou- 
levardier who  tries  at  all  costs  to  appear  original 
is  crystallized;  his  argot,  his  antics,  his  good  and 
bad  qualities  are  set  before  us  with  a  versimilitude 
which  this  dramatist  never  surpassed.  Paul 
Costard,  the  principal  character  of  the  piece,  is  at 
the  theater  one  evening  in  company  with  his  mis- 
tress, and  declares  that  unless  she  behaves  herself 
and  allows  him  to  direct  his  opera-glasses  in  what- 
ever part  of  the  house  he  pleases,  he  will  obtain  an 
introduction  to  the  young  girl  whom  he  has  been 
observing  in  a  nearby  box,  and  marry  her.  Bob- 
ette  dares  him;  he  takes  the  dare,  leaves  her  ab- 
ruptly, gets  the  introduction  to  the  young  lady, 
and  before  long  is  allowed  by  her  parents  to  be- 
come an  "  accepted  "  suitor.  It  so  happens  that 
Alice  Labosse  herself  is  something  of  an  "  orig- 
inal." When  her  mother  tells  her  that  Costard 
wishes  to  marry  her,  she  replies  that  the  whole 
matter  leaves  her  indifferent. 

73 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Mme.  Labosse.  You  don't  mean  to  tell  me  that  it 
makes  no  difference  to  you  whether  you  marry  the  first- 
comer  or  not? 

Alice.     Absolutely  none! 

Mme.  Labosse.  Old  or  young,  hideous  or  handsome, 
rich  or  poor  —  it's  all  the  same  to  you  ? 

Alice.  The  same  ?  No.  But  I  have  no  desire  for 
one  any  more  than  for  the  other.  I  tell  you.  Mamma,  it's 
of  no  importance.  I  accept  everything  that  each  day 
brings  me:  good  and  bad  together.  Don't  worry  me  now; 
be  nice. 

Mme.  Labosse.  It's  perfectly  monstrous!  Think  of 
having  a  disposition  like  yours,  my  child!  Only  eighteen 
years  old,  too.     You  are  laying  up  trouble  for  yourself  — 

Alice.     Perhaps. 

Mme.  Labosse.     And  you  don't  care  at  all? 

Alice.     No,  it  makes  no  difference  to  me. 

Costard  marries  her  —  and  a  week  later  returns 
to  Bobette.  Then  begins  the  intrigue.  It  is  not 
very  new,  and  not  at  all  respectable.  Alice  loses 
no  time  in  finding  a  lover;  Costard  Is  discovered 
under  embarrassing  circumstances,  but  before  long 
Alice  takes  revenge,  and  is  found  in  a  no  less  em- 
barrassing situation.  The  play  must  be  taken  in 
that  spirit  of  aloof  unreality  which  Lamb  urged 
we  should  have  to  assume  when  seeing  the  artificial 
comedies  of  the  English  Restoration;  in  that  sense, 
Le  Nouveau  Jeu  is  the  best  of  comedy,  but  if  we 
take  facts  for  facts,  it  Is  a  dismal  tragedy.  At  the 
last.  Costard  and  Alice,  equally  guilty,  are  called 
before  the  tribunal  and  severely  censured  by  the 
judge.  After  the  moral  and  sententious  "  lec- 
ture," Costard  replies : 

I  freely  admit  everything.  Monsieur.  It  is  life,  simple 
every-day  life.     It  is  life  to  get  married  and  regret  it;  to 

74 


HENRI  LAVEDAN 


endeavor  to  escape  from  the  bonds  of  holy  matrimony,  to 
be  caught,  to  desert  house  and  family,  and  then  go  the 
limit.  .  .  . 

Judge.  Do  you  not  regret  having  destroyed  the  happi- 
ness of  your  wife? 

Costard.  Not  in  the  least.  She  could  never  have 
been  happy  with  me.  I'm  good  for  everything  in  the 
world  except  marriage. 

Judge.     Then  you  had  no  business  marrying. 

Costard.  How  was  I  to  know?  It's  just  like  spin- 
ach :  in  order  to  dislike  it,  you  must  first  taste  it  — 

Le  Nouveau  Jeu  is  hardly  more  than  a  series  of 
episodes,  but  with  what  unerring  skill  are  they  con- 
trived !  They  are  more  than  comments  on  certain 
sections  of  life ;  they  are  definite  and  truthful  pic- 
tures, full  of  verve,  throbbing  with  vitality. 
Their  morality  cannot  well  be  called  Into  question: 
Lavedan  paints  what  he  sees.  He  Is  a  remarkably 
clever  bystander. 

Since  the  fall  of  the  last  Monarchy  In  France  In 
1 87 1,  and  Indeed  ever  since  the  Revolution,  the 
aristocracy  has  never  quite  found  Its  proper  posi- 
tion In  the  state.  It  was  forced  either  to  partici- 
pate In  the  government  and  thereby  relinquish 
much  of  Its  former  prestige,  or  remain  apart  and 
preserve  the  tradition  of  culture  and  gentility 
which  had  for  so  many  centuries  been  In  Its  sole 
keeping.  The  Indomitable  pride,  the  arrogant 
superiority,  the  consciousness  of  the  divine  right  of 
nobility,  the  pathos  of  the  dying  out  of  the  Anclen 
Regime,  Lavedan  centered  In  his  finest  character 
creation:  Le  Prince  d'Aurec.  The  entire  play  is 
concerned  with  this  suave  aristocrat;  the  plot  — 
such  as  it  Is  —  and  the  minor  personages,  serve 

75 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

but  to  throw  into  relief  the  insufferable  but  some- 
how sympathetic  snob.  By  reason  of  his  birth,  the 
Prince  believes  that  he  has  but  to  "  invent  a  clever 
saying — a  perfume,  a  shade  —  set  it  in  circula- 
tion; a  new  cravat,  a  distinctive  hat,  discover  a 
new  method  of  riding,  render  a  vice  as  attractive 
as  the  ridicule  of  virtue;  revolt  against  the  vulgar 
diamond  of  the  Jew,  the  bronze  objets  d'art  of  the 
bourgeois,  the  hardware  of  the  Peruvian !  That 
is  the  only  occupation  worthy  a  gentleman  nowa- 
days! If  he  borrows  money  from  De  Horn,  he 
is  under  no  obligation,  he  believes,  to  pay  it  back: 
Noblesse  oblige!  Has  he  not  allowed  De  Horn 
to  sit  at  his  table,  De  Horn,  a  Jew  and  a  bour- 
geois !  Has  he  not  condescended  to  be  seen  in 
public  with  him,  even  driven  his  carriages?  And 
does  the  Jew  then  ask  for  his  cursed  money? 
This  attitude  is  a  little  difficult  to  understand;  but 
it  must  be  remembered  that  the  Prince  had  been 
educated  with  the  idea  that  his  family  had  from 
the  days  of  the  Crusades  been  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant and  influential  in  France,  that  because  of 
its  accomplishments,  to  it  was  ever  due  the  respect 
of  every  succeeding  generation  of  Frenchmen,  be 
they  Royalists  or  Republicans.  Yet  the  Prince 
plays  a  losing  game :  he  lives  in  a  Republic,  where 
justice  is  done.  De  Horn  will  have  his  money. 
The  Duchess  pays  the  Jew,  who  disappears;  the 
Prince  bows  down  momentarily  to  his  fate,  but  his 
last  words  redeem  him;  right  or  wrong,  he  is  a 
noble  to  the  end.  "  To-day  I  can  swear  to  do  only 
one  thing:  live  like  an  honest  man,  and  when  the 
time  comes,  die  like  a  prince."  We  may  doubt 
whether  he  will  live  as  he  says,  but  we  are  positive 

76 


HENRI  LAVEDAN 


that  he  means  to  die  like  a  prince.  "  In  war?" 
asks  his  mother.  "Will  you  die  in  battle?" 
Montade  the  novelist  answers  that  that  is  no  more 
than  any  of  us  would  do,  and  the  Prince  replies 
with  incomparable  hauteur  —  like  one  of  his 
Crusader  forefathers — "II  y  a  la  maniere !  " 
All  of  France  might  die  for  her  on  the  field  of  bat- 
tle, but  he  will  die  in  his  own  particular  "  man- 
ner !  "  The  line  is  worthy  Cyrano's  "  Ma  pan- 
ache!  " 

Viveurs!  is  a  series  of  interesting  genre  scenes; 
it  contains  little  that  cannot  be  found  later  and  bet- 
ter developed,  in  three  or  four  of  the  more  impor- 
tant plays.  Catherine  is  one  of  those  rare  com- 
edies in  contemporary  French  drama  which  can 
with  impunity  be  presented  by  young  ladies'  board- 
ing schools.  Although  it  could  scarcely  be  termed 
insipid,  the  studied  avoidance  of  anything  unpleas- 
ant in  subject-matter  or  treatment,  the  inherent 
goodness  of  the  heroine,  leave  us  with  the  impres- 
sion that  the  author  was  either  totally  uninspired 
or  else  that  he  wished  to  write  a  play  which  could 
give  no  possible  offense. 

Nothing  could  be  more  different  than  Le  Mar- 
quis  de  Priola.  That  play,  together  with  Le  Duel, 
is,  among  Lavedan's  later  plays,  the  most  signifi- 
cant. Add  to  these  Le  Prince  d'Aurec  and  Le 
Nouveau  Jeu,  and  we  have  the  best  and  most  rep- 
resentative plays  of  the  author. 

Le  Marquis  de  Priola  Is  the  most  pointedly 
moral  of  any  of  the  plays.  Don  Juan  has  always 
been  an  attractive  figure;  but  among  his  many  In- 
terpreters he  has  found  none  to  draw  so  poignant 
a  lesson  from  his  famous  escapades.     The  sinister 

77 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Marquis  (played  by  the  incomparable  Le  Bargy 
at  the  Comedie  Frangaise)  is  the  irresistible  se- 
ducer, the  arch-demon  whose  fierce  onslaughts  have 
as  yet  never  failed  to  attain  their  desired  end. 
"  I  am  a  dilettante,"  he  says,  "  a  collector  who 
avidly  looks  on  at  the  spectacle  of  the  hesitations, 
troubles,  fevers  and  agonies  of  the  feminine  heart. 
It  is  a  divine  comedy:  I  see  women  laugh,  cry,  suf- 
fer, lie.  .  .  .  This  is  an  exquisite  joy  to  me  — 
always  provided  that  those  smiles,  kisses,  tears, 
are  brilliantly  executed:  they  must  be  things  of 
beauty."  To  his  protege  Pierre  Morain,  a  young 
man  whom  he  has  had  the  apparent  decency  to 
adopt,  he  says :  "  Don't  believe  in  women,  they 
will  believe  in  you.  Domineer  over  them.  Never 
fall  in  love :  you  will  burn  your  fingers  if  you  do. 
Never  for  a  second  admit  to  yourself  that  they  are 
of  the  slightest  importance,  that  they  can  influence 
your  destiny  by  the  weight  of  a  single  hair.  Fear 
no  woman,  believe  no  woman,  above  all,  those  who 
say  they  are  honest;  they  are  the  worst  of  all." 
At  an  embassy  ball  in  Paris  the  Marquis'  divorced 
wife,  since  remarried,  catches  sight  of  her  former 
husband,  and  immediately  realizes  that  his  hold 
on  her  Is  as  strong  as  ever.  Afraid  of  herself, 
she  confides  in  her  puritanical  friend,  Mme.  de 
Savieres,  who  consents  to  remonstrate  with  the 
Marquis.  But  with  consummate  skill  the  Mar- 
quis, who  knows  how  to  deal  with  puritans,  nearly 
achieves  the  conquest  of  the  envoy;  indeed,  Mme. 
de  Chesne,  Priola's  former  wife,  intervenes  just 
in  time  to  save  her  friend.  The  idea  of  making 
violent  love  to  Mme.  de  Chesne  has  taken  hold  of 
the  Marquis.     But  Therese  de  Valleroy  has  mean- 

78 


HENRI  LAVEDAN 


time  promised  to  come  to  the  Marquis'  home  to  see 
"  the  famous  collection  of  almanacs."  Priola's 
preoccupation  with  Mme.  de  Chesne  leads  him  to 
insult  Therese  and  cruelly  wound  her  pride.  He 
plays  with  her  a  few  minutes,  and  then  sends  her 
home,  saying  to  her  as  she  leaves:  "Let  us  be 
more  than  lovers :  let  us  be  friends  1  "  Now  there 
is  one  obstacle  to  the  reconquering  of  Mme.  de 
Chesne:  Pierre  Morvain.  The  young  man,  re- 
volted by  the  cruelty  of  his  "  guardian,"  begs  him 
not  to  persecute  the  poor  woman.  The  conflict 
gives  rise  to  a  superb  scene,  which  results  in 
Pierre's  declaration  that  he  will  live  no  longer  with 
his  guardian.  Mme.  de  Chesne,  receiving  an  old 
letter  calculated  to  arouse  in  her  the  sensations  and 
memories  of  her  first  love  for  the  Marquis,  is 
ready  to  give  in  to  him,  but  her  virtuous  friend 
Mme.  de  Savieres  suggests  that  she  test  the  fidelity 
of  the  lover.  If,  as  he  says,  he  is  really  in  love 
with  his  former  wife,  he  will  not  make  love  to  her, 
Mme.  de  Savieres.  But  again  the  puritanical 
woman  comes  near  succumbing  to  the  diabolic 
wooing  of  Don  Juan.  Pierre,  who  has  been  clear- 
ing out  the  Marquis'  desk  and  rearranging  old 
letters  and  papers,  comes  across  a  photograph  of 
his  mother :  the  truth  then  flashes  over  him  —  the 
dishonor  of  his  father's  "  accidental  "  death  — 
and  he  decides  on  revenge.  The  next  day  he  con- 
fronts his  guardian  with  the  photograph.  "  I 
ought  to  kill  you,  but  it  is  not  worth  my  while  to 
do  so:  your  death  is  not  far  off.  I  shall  let  you 
go."  "  What  do  you  mean?  "  asks  the  Marquis. 
"  That  the  life  you  have  been  leading  is  begin- 
ning to  tell  on  you;  you  haven't  long  to  live." 

79 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

The  Marquis,  overcome  with  rage  and  fear,  tells 
Pierre  that  he  is  his  own  son,  then  falls,  stricken 
with  apoplexy.  Mme.  de  Savieres'  husband,  a 
doctor,  is  present.  After  ausculting  the  Marquis, 
he  says :  "  Acute  ataxia.  In  six  months  he  will 
be  bhnd  and  completely  paralyzed." — "  Will  he 
keep  his  reason?  " — *'  Yes.  He  may  last  twenty 
years." — *'  How  horrible  I  "  says  Mme.  de  Sa- 
vieres. "And  who  will  take  care  of  him?" — 
Pierre  replies:     "  I." 

Why  is  it  that  in  the  realm  of  modern  drama 
so  many  writers  have  in  their  first  few  efforts  pro- 
duced their  best  work,  their  most  lasting  plays? 
Sudermann,  Max  Halbe,  Donnay;  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent Hauptmann,  Lemaitre,  and  now  Lavedan, 
appear  to  have  reached  their  highest  point  of  de- 
velopment during  their  first  eight  or  ten  years  of 
activity.  Without  trying  to  delve  too  deep  into 
the  reasons,  we  may  at  least  note  that  many  of 
these  dramatists  were  at  first  content  merely  to 
draw  characters  and  not  to  comment  at  any  great 
length  upon  them ;  to  paint,  not  to  explain.  Lave- 
dan painted  a  great  portrait  in  Le  Prince  d'Aurec; 
in  Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  Rostand  did  the  same 
thing.  In  Le  Marquis  de  Priola,  Lavedan  at- 
tempted, with  a  good  deal  of  success,  to  explain 
motives  and  point  a  moral;  in  Chantecler,  Rostand 
went  to  the  very  depths  of  his  hero's  character, 
with  remarkable  success.  What  Rostand  will  do 
in  the  future  remains  to  be  seen;  what  Lavedan 
will  do  —  well,  he  seems  to  have  done.  And  his 
latest  plays  cause  us  to  regret  his  defection  from 
the  early  manner.  With  advancing  years,  that 
philosophical  penchant  which  is  innate  in  French- 

80 


HENRI  LAVEDAN 


men  has  got  the  upper  hand  with  Lavedan.  In 
Le  Marquis  de  Priola  he  went  as  far  as  an  artist 
can  safely  go ;  but  with  Le  Duel  he  went  a  step  be- 
yond. In  Le  Gout  du  Vice,  in  spite  of  occasional 
flashes  reminiscent  of  the  days  of  Le  Nouveau 
Jeu,  he  is  so  pointedly  moral  that  we  begin  to  feel 
that  we  are  being  preached  at. 

Le  Duel  is  concerned  with  the  struggle  of  two 
brothers,  for  a  woman.  Doctor  Morey,  a  well- 
known  alienist,  a  freethinker  and  atheist,  and  the 
Abbe  Daniel,  a  devout  priest,  are  the  brothers  in 
question.  The  Duke  de  Chailles  is  a  degenerate 
morphine-fiend,  under  treatment  at  the  Doctor's 
sanatorium.  He  has  only  a  few  months  to  live. 
The  Duchess,  coming  regularly  to  see  her  husband, 
has  been  attracted  by  the  Doctor,  who  in  turn  is 
drawn  toward  the  charming  woman,  whose  ideas 
he  feels  are  so  well  in  accord  with  his  own.  Dan- 
iel, whom  the  Doctor  has  not  seen  for  ten  years 

—  their  incompatible  ideas  have  kept  them  apart 

—  comes  to  ask  him  to  assist  in  the  founding  of  a 
dispensary.  If  Henri  refuses  to  lend  his  support, 
perhaps  his  rich  friend  the  Duchess  will  undertake 
to  endow  it?  The  duel  begins  when  Henri  allows 
Daniel  to  speak  to  her  "  on  condition  that  she  is 
not  to  know  I  am  your  brother."  The  thesis  of 
the  play  is  at  once  made  clear,  as  Daniel  says: 
"  You  struggle  against  disease,  I  against  passion; 
you  save  the  body,  I  the  soul.  Why,  at  this  mo- 
ment I  have  among  my  penitents  a  woman  .  .  . 
whose  name  I  do  not  know,  whose  face  I  have 
never  seen.  .  .  .  She  is  unhappily  married,  and 
she  loves  a  man  who  is  not  her  husband.  A  dozen 
times  she  was  on  the  point  of  revealing  her  love 

8i 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

to  him  ...  a  dozen  times  she  came  to  my  confes- 
sional for  power  to  resist.  Each  time  she  received 
that  power,  and  overcame  temptation.  .  .  ."  Of 
course,  the  unknown  is  the  Duchess.  From  this 
point  on,  the  play  becomes  a  series  of  scenes,  be- 
tween the  Duchess  and  Daniel,  and  between  the 
Duchess  and  Henri.  When  she  is  with  the  for- 
mer, she  is  ready  to  take  the  veil,  when  with  the 
latter,  she  is  ready  to  give  in  to  him.  The  dead- 
lock is  finally  broken  by  the  news  that  the  Duke, 
in  a  fit  of  madness,  has  thrown  himself  from  the 
window,  and  will  doubtless  die  within  a  few  hours. 
Meantime,  a  strange  metamorphosis  has  taken 
place  in  the  mind  of  Daniel.  Together  with 
Henri  and  the  Duchess  he  has  gone  to  the  Bishop 
for  advice :  he  cannot  let  his  brother  marry  the 
Duchess.  His  soul  has  been  in  the  struggle,  and 
he  is  jealous  of  his  brother's  victory.  But  when 
it  is  learned  that  the  Duke  Is  dead,  and  after  think- 
ing over  the  Bishop's  advice,  he  conquers  his  per- 
sonal feelings,  and  bids  the  Duchess  marry  Henri, 
saying  that  it  is  her  duty  to  become  a  wife  and  a 
mother.  Too  deeply  humiliated  by  his  defeat,  he 
will  leave  for  the  Orient  in  company  with  the 
Bishop.  Henri  then  takes  the  Duchess  into  his 
arms. 

The  idea  Is  excellent,  the  dialogue  concise  and 
swift,  and  the  struggle  as  clearly  defined  as  a  Her- 
vieu  could  ask  for.  But  after  all,  we  may  well 
ask,  what  of  it  ?  The  knot  is  cut  just  at  the  critical 
point.  Opportune  deaths,  the  recognition  of  long- 
lost  fathers,  and  convenient  marriages,  are  all  very 
well  for  conventional  comedies;  but  where  the 
problem  Is  of  so  great  importance  as  Lavedan 

82 


HENRI  LAVEDAN 


would  lead  us  to  believe  it  is  in  Le  Duel,  we  can 
accept  no  such  facile  denouement.  Certainly,  the 
Duke  was  likely  to  kill  himself  at  any  time;  but 
his  doing  so  just  when  the  Duchess  would  have  to 
decide  her  own  fate,  ruins  the  thesis  set  before  us. 
The  Duchess  is  being  continually  swayed  between 
two  strong  wills,  which  correspond  with  two  selves 
within  her,  but  when  the  Deux  ex  machina  steps  in, 
she  is  allowed  to  escape.  At  the  end  of  the  play, 
she  is  no  different  from  what  she  was  as  the  cur- 
tain rose  on  the  first  act.  The  Duchess  therefore 
ceases  to  interest  us.  Daniel,  near  the  close  of 
the  play,  begins  to  interest  us  only  as  he  decides 
to  depart  for  the  Far  East. 

Since  Le  Duel  Lavedan  appears  to  be  searching 
round  for  new  subjects.  The  aristocracy  and  the 
boulevard  still  possess  charms  for  him,  while  the 
history  of  France,  and  the  question  of  war,  cause 
him  to  hover  about  the  haunts  of  his  first  successes. 
Sire  is  a  romantic  play  with  a  historical  back- 
ground. A  young  man  pretends  that  he  is  the 
lost  Louis  XVII,  and  convinces  a  half-crazy 
countess  that  he  is  really  the  son  of  Louis  XVI. 
Through  five  acts  or  conventional  intrigue, 
the  Figaro-like  Roulette  manages  to  hold  the 
interest. 

"  In  Le  Gout  du  Vice"  says  Lavedan,  "  I  have 
tried  to  change  my  manner;  I  have  done  my  best 
to  transform  myself,  simply  to  give  variety  to  my 
work.  Those  who  have  seen  Sire,  Le  Marquis 
de  Priola,  and  Le  Duel  will  notice  this,  and  judge 
whether  or  no  I  have  succeeded."  Yes,  he  has 
changed  his  manner;  and  we  regret  it,  we  who 
have  seen  the  plays  he  mentions  I 

83 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

The  latest  play  ^  Is  Servir  ( 1 9 1 2 ) .  A  consider- 
able departure  from  all  the  preceding  "  man- 
ners "  of  the  author,  it  is  certainly  his  best  work 
since  Le  Duel.  This  is  the  story  of  a  father  who 
is  a  born  soldier,  but  who  has  been  forced  to  re- 
main a  civilian,  and  his  son,  who  is  an  officer,  but 
whose  scruples  of  conscience  are  radically  opposed 
to  the  "  profession."  This  son  has  discovered  an 
explosive  many  times  more  powerful  than  any 
heretofore  known,  but  refuses  to  reveal  the  secret 
for  the  service  of  the  Patrie.  The  father,  driven 
by  his  innate  desire  to  serve  —  a  desire,  the  author 
is  careful  to  tell  us,  to  engage  in  war  as  such,  not 
primarily  in  the  interest  of  his  country  —  spies  on 
his  son  and  discovers  the  secret.  The  big  scene 
is  the  struggle  between  father  and  son,  with  the 
mother  between  them.  The  father  tears  the  but- 
tons from  the  son's  uniform,  saying  that  he  is  un- 
worthy his  position  as  an  officer.  The  mother, 
sympathizing  with  her  child,  interferes  and  at- 
tempts to  kill  herself.  This  brings  the  men  to 
their  senses.  Then  the  father  tells  them  that  he 
has  been  commissioned  by  the  government  to  pre- 
vent the  mobilization  of  the  enemy's  army  in  Mo- 
rocco, and  lets  them  know  further  than  another 
son,"  a  soldier  in  Morocco,  has  been  murdered  by 
that  enemy  which  is  now  about  to  make  war  on 
France.  The  sense  of  personal  injury  then  turns 
the  tables :  mother,  father,  son,  are  actuated  by  a 
desire  for  vengeance,  and  they  all  welcome  the 
boom  of  the  cannon  announcing  the  declaration 
of  war. 

1  At  the  time  of  writing,  but  Petard  was  produced  in  the 
Spring  of  1914. 

84 


HENRI  LAVEDAN 


The  family  struggle  and  its  relation  to  national 
affairs, —  the  main  idea  of  the  play, —  is  very  skill- 
fully and  interestingly  developed.  Yet  the  son 
as  a  French  officer  is  hard  to  accept.  How  could 
such  a  man  think  as  he  thinks,  and  still  remain  an 
officer?  Again  Lavedan  has  strained  a  point  in 
order  that  his  thesis  might  be  worked  out. 

When  an  author  begins  his  career  and  wins  his 
greatest  successes  in  one  kind  of  work,  we  are  loath 
to  see  him  venture  far  afield.  Often  he  does  this 
at  his  peril.  Lavedan  is  at  his  best  in  pure  char- 
acter-drawing, like  Le  Prince  d'Aurec;  In  other 
fields  he  has  done  sincere  and  good  work,  but  in 
those  other  fields  there  is  lacking  that  sure  touch, 
that  evenness  which  he  once  taught  us  to  expect. 
He  may  still  do  significant  work,  he  could  hardly 
do  otherwise,  but — "  II  y  a  la  maniere  I  " 


85 


MAURICE  DONNAY 

"  A  PLAY  is  a  love  story,  and  since  that  story  is 
laid  in  various  places,  we  are  led  to  believe  that 
plays  differ." 

These  words  of  Maurice  Donnay  are  the  quin- 
tessence of  his  theory  of  the  theater.  To  him  life 
is  a  spectacle  from  which  the  love  element  must  be 
extracted  and  molded  into  an  art  form,  and  that 
form  he  has  once  for  all  fixed  in  his  finest  and 
best-known  play,  Aviants.  Love,  within  or  with- 
out the  marriage  bond,  and  sex  attraction,  these 
are  the  eternal  realities  for  the  poetic  and  delicate 
Parisian  whose  plays  remain  the  delight  of  Tout- 
Paris. 

Amants  opens  at  the  home  of  Claudine  Rozay, 
a  retired  actress,  who  is  entertaining  a  number  of 
children  at  a  party  for  her  own  daughter,  "  Of 
the  correct  and  elegant  mothers  who  have  brought 
children,  not  one  is  married;  each  of  them,  like 
their  own  hostess,  is  comfortably  established  in  a 
liaison  which  assures  her,  together  with  luxuries, 
a  sort  of  outward  respectability,  and  permits  her 
to  associate  with  '  society.'  "  Georges  Vetheuil 
is  a  guest  at  this  gathering;  he  has  come  to  visit 
the  hostess,  whom  he  once  casually  met,  and  has 
asked  to  be  permitted  to  further  the  acquaintance. 
In  an  artfully  conducted  scene,  Claudine  gives  in  to 
Georges'  overtures,  and  consents  to  become  his 

86 


MAURICE  DONNAY 


mistress.  The  Count  de  Ruyseux,  Claudine's 
"  legitimate  "  lover,  the  father  of  Claudine's  little 
daughter,  then  enters,  and  the  unsuspecting  count 
meets  for  the  first  time  his  new  rival.  After 
Georges  leaves,  Claudine  gives  bent  to  her  feelings 
in  true  Donnayesque  fashion: 

Claudine.     What's  the  news? 

Count.     Nothing  much. 

Claudine.  Tell  me  what  there  is!  No  gossip?  See 
any  one? 

Count.     Oh,  yes:  met  Lagny. 

Claudine.     Ah,  what  did  he  have  to  say? 

Count.  Nothing  —  since  he  stopped  paying  attention 
to  my  wife,  he  cuts  me  dead. 

Claudine.     Really ! 

Count.  Or  rather,  since  he  has  dropped  out  of  the 
number  of  those  who  pay  attention  to  my  wife ! 

Claudine.  Please,  Alfred,  you  know  how  I  detest 
hearing  you  say  such  things! 

Count.     Why  so?     I'm  not  at  all  bitter. 

Claudine.     Of  course:  you're  a  philosopher! 

Count.  I'm  not  a  philosopher;  only,  as  every  one  in 
Paris  knows  of  my  wife's  conduct,  my  assumed  ignorance 
of  the  fact  would  be  childish,  and  might  even  give  rise  to 
graver  suspicions;  to  brag  of  it  would  be  odious  in  the 
extreme;  but  to  mention  it  before  certain  picked  indi- 
viduals, like  you,  and  in  a  light  and  graceful  manner  — 
that's  the  only  decent  way  for  a  man  who  knows  well  the 
exigencies  of  life.  I  think  there's  a  splendid  place  to  fill 
between  Georges  Dandin  and  Othello. 

Meantime,  Claudine  has  been  living  with 
Vetheuil,  but  of  this  Ruyseux  knows  nothing.  One 
night  Ruyseux  and  Vetheuil  dine  at  Claudine's, 
and  Ruyseux  bids  her  good-by:  he  is  leaving  for 

87 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Naples.  This  is  the  chance  the  lovers  have  been 
awaiting,  and  they  determine  to  take  advantage 
of  the  other's  absence  and  spend  the  time  at 
Fontainebleau.  Claudine  and  her  new  lover,  hav- 
ing spent  some  months  together,  come  to  the  in- 
evitable breaking-off,  and  the  woman  gives  vent 
to  her  pent-up  jealousy.  Rather  illogically 
Vetheuil  says  he  wants  his  liberty;  he  is  dissatisfied 
with  their  "  false  position,"  he  says.  Soon  after, 
Claudine  —  sorry  for  her  precipitancy  in  the  scene 
In  question  —  comes  to  him  and  implores  him  to 
forgive  her,  but  he  refuses,  recognizing  the  fact 
that  because  of  Claudine's  daughter  and  Ruyseux 
they  cannot  be  all  to  each  other  that  he  could  wish. 
He  cannot  for  the  moment  see  her  point  of  view. 
But  this  attitude  is  only  temporary,  for  he  cannot 
long  remain  obdurate  in  the  face  of  the  manifold 
charms  of  his  former  mistress.  Somewhat  afraid 
of  himself  once  more,  he  resolves  to  go  away,  and 
break  off  their  idyllic  union  at  its  height,  in  Italy. 
She  has  come  to  know  that  they  are  not  eternal 
lovers,  and  wishes  to  preserve  the  memory  of  their 
past.  Her  daughter,  too,  will  in  the  future  de- 
mand more  of  Claudine's  time  and  attention.  In 
the  fourth  act  they  part. 

Vetheuil.  Now,  Claudine,  please,  not  that!  You're 
breaking  my  heart.  Suppose,  now,  I  do  stay,  could  we 
live  again  that  Paris  life,  having  the  same  obstacles  to 
overcome  as  before?  With  those  same  scenes  over  and 
over  again?  They  would  wear  us  out,  bore  us  infinitely. 
You  know  very  well,  they  would  begin  again  the  day  we 
returned,  and  we  know  that  they  are  simply  the  result  of 
the  conditions  under  which  we  try  to  live,  under  which  we 
first  met.     Good  Heavens,  how  often  have  we  tried  to  be 


MAURICE  DONNAY 


happy  in  spite  of  everything !  And  we  were  never  able  — 
we  shouldn't  be  now  if  we  tried  again:  we'd  only  end  by 
hating  each  other,  perhaps  deceiving  each  other. 

Claudine.     Oh,  no,  no! 

Vetheuil.  Is  that  sort  of  existence  possible?  No,  it 
would  be  a  living  hell,  it  would  be  the  worst  sort  of  life, 
especially  after  these  weeks  we've  passed  together,  alone, 
so  alone!  We  have  been  too  happy,  and  we  cannot  find 
greater  happiness;  we've  had  a  month  of  happiness  which 
nothing  can  ever  efface  — 

Claudine.  If  it  weren't  for  the  idea  of  our  separat- 
ing— 

Vetheuil.  Yes,  but  that  thought  kept  our  happiness 
in  bounds,  prevented  it  from  becoming  a  sort  of  insolent 
madness,  gave  it  a  tinge  of  melancholy.  It  was  like  the 
evening  mist  that  enshrouds  the  mountains,  softens  their 
hard  outlines,  and  makes  their  enormous  mass  things  of 
infinite  tenderness. 


Claudine.  Then  —  this  is  the  end  —  of  every- 
thing—  ? 

Vetheuil.  Listen,  Claudine,  let  me  tell  you,  let 
me  — 

Claudine.  What  can  you  say  to  me?  Something 
reasonable  again?     Don't  you  feel  anything? 

Vetheuil.  Claudine,  that's  not  kind  —  If  you  only 
knew!  I'm  all  broken  up,  too;  I  have  a  steep  Calvary  as 
well  as  you,  but  I  say  this  must  be,  it  must!     It  must! 

Claudine.     Then  I'll  never  see  you  again — ! 

Vetheuil.  Of  course  you  will  —  I'll  come  back, 
later,  after  we're  both  cured. 

Claudine.     Do  you  believe  we  shall  be? 

Vetheuil,  Yes,  we  shall.  I'm  not  leaving  you 
because  you  have  deceived  me,  and  you're  not  leaving  me 
for  the  same  reason,  nor  are  we  tired  of  each  other. 
There  are  none  of  the  conventional  lies  between  us,  nor 
the  usual  infamous  tricks  to  envenom  our  love  and  wound 

89 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

us  incurably:  we  are  breaking  off  because  you  have  your 
daughter  and  your  friend,  and  we  cannot  be  happy  with 
those  obstacles  to  overcome.  We  are  saying  good-by,  but 
in  what  a  marvelously  beautiful  land! 

Vetheuil's  carriage  is  ready,  and  the  pair  must 
separate. 

Coachman.  Excellency,  it  is  ten-fifteen ;  we  have  just 
time  to  reach  Locarno  for  the  eleven  o'clock  train. 

Vetheuil.     I'm  coming  immediately. 

Claudine.     What  did  he  say? 

Vetheuil.  That  it  is  ten-fifteen,  and  I  had  only  time 
to  be  at  Locarno  at  eleven. 

Claudine.  Well  —  adieu!  [A  long  kiss.l  Let  me 
look  at  you,  Georges,  Georges  —  you  seem  like  a  dying 
man !  Go !  Go !  Don't  say  anything  more  to  me ! 
l^She  falls  on  a  bench,  her  head  bowed  low,  and  sobs.  The 
bells  of  the  carriage  are  heard  tinkling  in  the  distance, 
then  are  heard  no  more.     And  thus  ends  the  fourth  act.^ 

•  Eighteen  months  later  Georges,  who  has  been 
on  an  exploring  party  in  the  desert,  returns  and 
meets  Claudine  at  a  reception  in  Paris.  It  is  as 
he  had  predicted:  the  intense  fire  of  their  passion 
has  given  way  to  quiet  affection. 

Claudine.  And  now  what  are  you  going  to  do,  here 
in  Paris?  You  will  be  very  much  in  demand;  you  will 
be  feted  and  asked  everywhere;  think  of  it,  an  explorer! 

Vetheuil.  I've  given  up  all  that;  you  see,  when  one 
has  lived  eighteen  months  as  I  have,  this  Parisian  life  is 
no  longer  possible.  .  .  .  No,  I'm  going  away  again,  I'm 
going  to  help  colonize. 

Claudine.  You're  right,  but  it  won't  be  very  pleas- 
ant for  you  out  there,  all  alone. 

90 


MAURICE  DONNAY 


Vetheuil.  I  shan't  be  all  alone:  I'm  going  to  get 
married  —  she's  the  sister  of  one  of  my  comrades  on  this 
expedition ! 

Claudine.  What?  Why,  you've  hardly  been  back 
a  week!  You've  made  a  very  quick  decision,  haven't 
you? 

Vetheuil.  I've  known  her  for  more  than  a  month. 
When  we  were  returning  to  France,  she  joined  us  at 
Sa'igon,  and  we  came  back  together  on  the  same  boat. 

Claudine.     Is  she  pretty? 

Vetheuil.     Not  so  pretty  as  you. 

Claudine.  Don't  say  that:  in  a  few  weeks  you'll 
think  her  the  prettiest  of  women.  By  the  way,  you  must 
have  a  photograph  of  her  with  you? 

Vetheuil.     I  have. 

Claudine.  Then  show  it  to  me.  [He  shows  her  the 
photograph.}  You  are  right,  she's  not  pretty,  but  she 
looks  energetic  and  sweet.  You  see,  dear,  I  don't  feel  at 
all  jealous,  looking  at  this  picture,  and  if  ever  I  meet  the 
original,  I  shall  kiss  her  with  all  my  heart. 

Vetheuil.     How  good  you  are! 

Claudine.  Life  is  funny;  when  I  think  how  for 
months  I  never  did  anything  but  cry  and  think  about 
you !  .  .  .  And  now  here  you  are  telling  me  you  are  going 
to  marry,  and  I  have  perfect  control  of  myself,  and  am 
even  glad  to  hear  the  news!  ... 

Vetheuil.     What  an  adorable  woman  you  are! 

Claudine.  Of  course!  But  then,  I'm  cured,  you 
see! 

Vetheuil.    Yes,  and  all  that  had  to  be.  .  .  . 

Claudine.  It  was  a  real  duty,  and  that's  a  great  con- 
solation —  the  only  consolation,  I  think.  [A  pause.^ 
Well,  I  too,  am  going  to  marry. 

Vetheuil.     Really? 

Claudine.  Yes:  a  great  many  things  have  happened 
since  you  have  been  away. 


91 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Vetheuil.     I  can  well  imagine. 

Claudine.  The  Countess  de  Ruyseux  ran  away  with 
an  officer  a  few  weeks  ago. 

Vetheuil.     No? 

Claudine.  Yes!  Now  Ruyseux  considers  himself 
free.  .  .  .  We're  going  to  live  in  the  country,  on  our 
estate,  far  from  the  city;  we'll  come  to  Paris  only  when 
Denise  is  eighteen. 

Vetheuil.  Well  then,  it's  a  pretty  play:  ends  with 
two  marriages. 

Claudine.     Yes,  but  shall  we  be  happy? 

Vetheuil.  That's  another  story.  ...  If  we  re- 
mained here  in  this*  city  of  trouble  and  suggestiveness,  we 
who  are  the  playthings  of  passion,  we  should  again  be 
tempted  to  have  an  adventure  before  the  flame  flickered 
for  the  last  time.  Towards  forty,  you  would  fall  in  love 
with  a  youth  who  would  cause  you  great  suffering,  and 
finally  break  your  heart  — 

Claudine.     Don't  say  that! 

Vetheuil.  And  I,  toward  fifty,  might  fall  in  love 
with  some  child  who  would  lead,  me  a  merry  chase,  and 
take  me  to  new  lands  again! 

Claudine.     JVe  have  seen  enough! 

Vetheuil.  Yes,  and  when  one  has  lived,  and  ob- 
served, one  arrives  at  a  true  philosophy  of  life,  and  says 
that  at  the  bottom  of  all  this,  happiness,  or  at  least  what 
most  nearly  approaches  it,  is  always  — 

\^At  this  moment,  interrupting  Vetheuil  in  the  midst 
of  his  sentence,  a  Farandole,  danced  madly  by  a  number 
of  couples,  rushes  into  the  little  salon,  and  in  its  whirl- 
wind wakej  sweeps  out  Vetheuil  and  Claudine.] 

This  cold  and  summary  account  of  Amants  gives 
little  enough  of  the  spirit  of  the  French,  and  the 
attempt  but  proves  the  extreme  diflUculty  of  convey- 
ing an  adequate  idea  of  its  charm  and  grace.  Its 
style  and  subject  are  so  foreign  to  us  that  it  is 

92 


MAURICE  DONNAY 


doubtful  whether  a  translation,  however  well  done, 
could  reproduce  the  essentially  French  flavor  of  the 
original. 

Conjugal  infidelity,  however  jestingly  touched 
upon  in  this  and  other  Donnay  plays,  is  not  of 
prime  interest  in  itself;  it  is  merely  an  excuse,  an 
incident  round  which  the  poet  weaves  his  delicate 
web  of  sentiment  and  subtle  character  analysis. 
In  his  Dedication  to  Moliere  (in  Le  Menage  de 
Moliere)  he  says:  "  Reassure  yourself,  Mon- 
sieur, we  of  to-day  are  far  from  the  old  French 
conteurs,  and  their  jokes  on  Infidelity,  which  you 
yourself  have  often  revived  with  so  much  esprit, 
or  else  complacently  repeated.  The  conjugal  acci- 
dent no  longer  diverts  us :  it  appears  to  us  as  a 
social  necessity,  yes,  a  shameful  but  logical  conse- 
quence of  marriage  as  it  is  most  frequently  prac- 
ticed in  the  society  of  our  day."  This  attitude 
toward  adultery  as  a  "  social  necessity  "  is  most 
typical  of  Donnay;  this  statement  throws  a  great 
deal  of  light  on  his  work.  Marriage,  fidelity, 
love,  are  his  subjects,  and  the  greatest  of  these  is 
love.  That  is  why,  among  other  things,  Amants 
contains,  as  I  have  said,  his  philosophy  par  excel- 
lence. 

Maurice  Donnay  was  born  in  1859  at  Paris, 
of  a  well-to-do  bourgeois  family  In  the  district  of 
Montmartre,  where  the  young  Maurice  was  des- 
tined to  make  his  first  artistic  debut  not  many  years 
later.  His  predilection  for  literature  was  noted 
in  his  early  school  days,  for  his  Instructors  at  the 
Lycee  Louis-le-Grand  and  the  Ecole  Centrale  made 
reference  more  than  once  in  their  reports  to  the 
"  dreamy  and  contemplative  "  nature  of  the  youth, 

93 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

which  had  many  times  marked  him  out  as  a 
"  poet  "  among  his  schoolfellows.  In  accordance 
with  the  wishes  of  his  ambitious  parents,  he  pre- 
pared himself  for  the  profession  of  civil  engineer, 
and  in  1885  he  entered,  somewhat  unwillingly,  a 
contractor's  office.  He  was  evidently  ill-suited  for 
the  work,  and,  six  years  later,  as  a  direct  result  of 
his  appearing  in  public  and  reciting  his  own  verses 
in  a  cabaret  on  Montmartre,  he  was  forced  to  re- 
sign his  position.  Between  the  years  1889  and 
1 89 1  he  wrote  and  recited  a  number  of  graceful  if 
occasionally  vulgar  and  cynical  "  saynetes,"  which 
were  keenly  appreciated  by  the  habitues  of  the 
Chat  Noir.  In  1892  his  first  play,  Lysistrata,  was 
produced  at  the  Grand  Theatre ;  it  was  at  once  suc- 
cessful, and  attracted  some  notice.  The  story  and 
the  wit  of  the  Aristophanic  comedy  appealed  to 
the  somewhat  kindred  spirit  of  the  Frenchman, 
who  utilized,  however,  only  the  principal  outlines 
of  the  Greek  play,  and  rounded  it  out  with  a  gen- 
erous infusion  of  his  own  Gallic  wit.  The  next 
important  play  was  his  most  successful  and  is  cer- 
tainly his  most  brilliant,  and  will  doubtless  remain 
his  finest  achievement.  Lovers.  Jules  Lemaitre, 
a  great  authority,  a  keen  and  conservative  critic, 
pronounced  this  play  "  probably  a  masterpiece." 
He  was  speaking  of  the  piece  in  its  relation  to 
French  dramatic  literature,  not  merely  contempo- 
raneous writing.  The  praise  of  critics  and  pub- 
lic soon  lifted  the  young  dramatist  into  the  front 
rank,  made  way  for  further  successes,  and  pre- 
pared a  respectful  hearing  for  everything  he  was 
destined  to  write. 

La   Douloureuse  —  an    untranslatable    expres- 

94 


MAURICE  DONNAY 


slon  of  argot  —  again  delves  into  the  eternal  ques- 
tion. This  time  it  is  a  woman's  play:  she  suffers. 
Again  the  dramatist  tells  us  of  the  effect  of  passion 
on  human  character,  and  the  treatment  here,  con- 
sidered with  that  in  Aniants,  should  give  us  a  clear 
idea  of  Donnay's  mind.  "  The  principal  under- 
lying idea  in  Donnay's  plays,"  says  Roger  Le 
Brun,  the  author  of  a  little  monograph  on  the 
dramatist,  "  is,  in  its  essence,  this:  that  love,  as  a 
result  of  social  conventions,  for  the  most  part 
hypocritically  disguised  by  a  puerile  sentimentality, 
is  forced  to  do  service  for  the  basest  appetites  as 
well  as  the  most  artificial  emotions;  it  is  debased 
by  lies,  by  tricks,  by  the  avarice  of  Man,  side- 
tracked from  its  true  and  proper  functions,  going 
hand  in  hand  with  all  our  misdeeds  like  a  mon- 
strous and  vile  thing."  This  debasement  "  by 
lies  "  is  the  theme  of  La  Douloureuse.  Donnay 
harks  back  a  moment  to  Ibsen,  when  he  shows  us 
the  unhappy  result  of  a  lie  in  the  past.  The  story 
of  this  play  is  in  itself  of  little  importance :  it  is 
not  well  constructed  or  highly  interesting,  though 
the  theme  is  significant.  But  the  dramatist  has 
written  one  superb  act,  the  second.  The  closing 
scene  leaves  one  with  much  the  same  feling  as  that 
of  the  fourth  act  of  Amants;  that  same  longing, 
somewhat  sentimental,  that  regret  for  happiness 
lost,  but  happiness  to  be  regained,  hangs  heavy 
over  this  pair  of  lovers  who  are  parting.  He  says, 
"  Don't  you  too  feel  a  great  weight  lifted;  aren't 
you  even  happy?"  And  she  replies,  "Oh,  yes, 
but  I'm  going  to  cry,  all  the  same."  And  the  cur- 
tain drops. 

L'Jffranchie  is  another  typical  play.     It  Is  con- 

95 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

cerned  with  a  weak  and  lying  woman,  but  it  is 
again  the  characterization  and  the  poetic  atmos- 
phere which  place  this  work  among  the  best  of  its 
author. 

Georgette  Lemeunier,  played  by  Rejane  and 
Guitry,  is  the  story  of  man  and  wife,  the  "  victory 
of  the  wife  over  the  caprices  of  the  husband  —  a 
loyal  victory,  without  the  eternal  ancient  ruses  com-! 
mon  to  womankind." 

Le  Torrent  marks  a  radical  departure  in  the 
"  theatre  "  of  Donnay.  This  comes  as  near  being 
a  "  thesis  "  play  as  any  the  author  ever  wrote :  its 
theme  is  closely  akin  to  that  of  several  plays  of 
Hervieu  and  Brieux.  "  The  suicide  of  Valentine 
Lambert  —  an  unfaithful  husband  —  relieves  him 
of  the  cowardly  blame  of  his  family  for  the  crime 
of  forcing  motherhood  on  a  woman,  and  consti- 
tutes a  fearful  condemnation  of  the  terrible  mar- 
riage law  by  which  the  male  can  take  advantage  of 
the  most  despotic  means,  and  force  his  wife,  by 
the  exigencies  of  nature,  to  undergo  the  degrading 
lie  of  adultery." 

The  essential  unity  of  Donnay's  art  cannot  but 
suffer  by  combining  with  it  the  alloy  of  a  collab- 
orator, no  matter  how  skillful  or  powerful  that 
collaborator  may  be.  Donnay  twice  collaborated 
with  Lucien  Descaves,  and  the  resulting  plays  — 
La  Clairiere  and  Oiseaux  de  passage  —  we  can- 
not but  feel,  fall  into  a  class  much  below  Amants 
and  IJAfranchie.  The  first  of  these  is  another 
thesis  play,  the  second  a  Feminist  tract,  one  in 
which  the  thesis  is  of  more  importance  than  the 
play  itself.  If  Donnay  survives,  he  will  be  known 
as  the  author  of  two  or  three  charming  and  clever 

96 


MAURICE  DONNAY 


comedies  of  love,  not  as  the  champion  of  "  self- 
realization  "  or  woman's  rights.  The  day  of  the 
thesis  play  seems  to  have  passed,  and  the  works  of 
the  present  age  must  stand  or  fall  according  to  art 
standards,  not  social  or  political.  Donnay  was 
evidently  led  to  write  these  plays,  together  with 
L' Autre  Danger,  by  the  spirit  which  pervaded  the 
air;  but  he  must  soon  have  learned  that  he  might 
well  have  left  the  work  of  reform  to  those  who 
were  better  fitted  to  polemics,  and  allowed  Brieux 
to  write  La  Femme  seule,  an  infinitely  finer  social 
document  than  any  Donnay  attempted  to  produce. 
Yet  L' Autre  Danger,  by  reason  of  its  manifestly 
interesting  theme  and  masterly  development  of  the 
,  serious  side  of  human  character,  must  ever  remain 
one  of  the  author's  finest  achievements.  U Autre 
Danger  is  clearly  a  thesis  play,  and  the  thesis  con- 
stitutes anything  but  a  "  pleasant  "  subject.  A 
woman  who  gives  her  daughter  to  her  own  lover 
for  a  husband  —  that  is  not  a  pretty  situation;  but 
handled  by  Donnay  it  becomes  a  terrible  and  a 
painful  one,  and  the  terror  and  pity  are  made  the 
more  poignant  as  the  dramatist  has  hesitated  so 
long  to  attack  the  subject.  During  more  than  two 
acts  —  up  to  the  middle  of  the  third  —  the  theme, 
or  at  least  its  direct  application,  does  not  become 
evident.  It  seems  that  the  author,  realizing  the 
odiousness  of  the  situation,  occupied  as  much  time 
as  possible  in  preparing  for  the  disagreeable  but 
highly  dramatic  climax  —  and  this  climax,  when  it 
comes,  is  the  more  effective  as  it  is  unexpected,  or 
rather  not  lengthily  and  laboriously  prepared  for. 
But  once  he  starts,  the  wheels  of  action  move  at 
lightning  speed,  and  hardly  are  we  aware  of  what 

97 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

is  happening,  until  it  has  become  a  thing  of  the 
past.  One  critic,  Antoine  Benoist,  thinks  that 
Donnay  was  afraid  of  his  subject  and  wished  to 
be  rid  of  its  unpleasant  side  as  soon  as  he  was  able ; 
but  as  Donnay  is  above  all  a  dramatist,  and  not  a 
prude  or  a  moralist,  and  since  he  wishes  to  make 
a  striking  effect  and  pile  up  as  quickly  as  he  could 
all  his  accumulated  action,  the  retardation  of  the 
story  in  the  first  half  of  the  play  is  wholly  justi- 
fiable on  the  grounds  that  he  was  seeking  a  greater 
tension  and  a  more  crushing  climax.  It  was  to 
such  apparent  neglect  of  form  as  this  that  Lemaitre 
made  reference  when  he  said  that  Donnay  "  among 
our  young  dramatists  is  one  of  the  few  whose 
works  are  the  closest  to  life  because  of  this  very 
negligence  of  composition." 

The  plays  immediately  following  Le  Torrent 
—  the  next  work  —  are  not  of  paramount  impor- 
tance. La  Bascule  and  Education  de  Prince  are, 
in  the  case  of  the  first,  a  study  of  the  relations 
between  man  and  wife,  and,  in  the  second,  a  re- 
writing of  a  bright  and  satirical  series  of  dia- 
logues. 

Le  Retour  de  Jerusalem  is  the  most  ambitious 
and  detailed  of  the  modern  plays  of  Donnay.  In 
it  he  attempted  a  problem:  Is  real  intimacy,  in- 
tellectual and  physical,  possible  between  members 
of  two  races?  But  the  universal  application  of 
that  supposed  problem  is  so  difficult  to  determine, 
that  the  problem  per  se,  is  almost  negligible.  We 
must  assume  therefore  that  the  author  took  a 
Jewess  and  a  Gentile  merely  as  types  of  radically 
different  races,  and  studied  them  in  and  for  them- 
selves.    In  a  long  preface  to  the  printed  play, 

98 


MAURICE  DONNAY 


called  forth  by  many  acrimonious  articles  and  much 
discussion,  Donnay  says  that  he  intended  to  place 
before  the  public,  with  all  due  fairness,  the  bred- 
in-the-bone  difference  between  Jew  and  Gentile. 
However  this  may  be,  he  has  succeeded  in  writing 
a  play  which  shows  very  clearly  the  essential  dif- 
ference between  one  human  being  and  another. 
This  is  a  love  story,  as  well  as  a  psychological 
study. 

The  production  of  Le  Retour  de  Jerusalem  in 
America  not  long  ago  with  one  of  the  cleverest  liv- 
ing actresses,  Madame  Simone,  in  the  leading  role, 
showed  clearly  the  great  gulf  between  French  and 
American  theatrical  methods.  Through  scene 
after  scene  the  play  proceeds  slowly,  developing 
character;  long  speech  after  long  speech  brings 
the  action  to  its  far-off  climax.  The  American 
public  was  not  willing  to  listen  to  conversation,  no 
matter  how  brilliant  or  how  interesting.  It  de- 
manded action.  Donnay  is  a  dramatist,  but  he  is 
likewise  a  poet  and  a  thinker;  the  French  audience, 
probably  the  best  trained  in  the  world,  is  willing 
to  listen  to  good  dialogue  for  half  an  hour,  pro- 
vided it  is  well  spoken  —  the  American  "  moving- 
picture  "  audience  demands  movement,  not  talk. 

The  next  two  plays,  L' Escalade  and  Parditre  do 
not  merit  special  mention.  The  most  interesting 
of  the  later  plays  is  the  only  one  in  which  the 
author  went  to  the  past  for  his  subject-matter. 
For  a  number  of  years  Donnay  had  been  devot- 
ing a  great  deal  of  time  to  the  study  of  Moliere. 
upon  whom  he  has  contributed  a  large  volume, 
and  in  19 12  the  Comedie  Franqaise  produced  Le 
Menage  de  Moliere.     In  this  five-act  verse  play 

99 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

—  Donnay  has  not  forgotten  his  real  gift  for  verse 
since  the  early  Montmartre  days!  —  he  has  ren- 
dered charming  tribute  to  his  compatriot,  in  the 
play  itself  as  well  as  in  the  delicate  and  spirituel 
Dedication: 

I  am  taking  the  liberty,  Monsieur,  of  writing  to  you,  as 
I  have  taken  a  greater  already,  that  of  writing  a  comedy 
on  your  household,  and  I  believe  that  in  putting  a  man 
such  as  you  upon  the  stage,  some  explanation,  if  not  ex- 
cuse, is  due  you.  ...  It  is  ever  an  extremely  hazardous 
proceeding  to  put  upon  the  stage  a  person  who  has  once 
actually  lived.  So  far  as  you  yourself  are  concerned, 
Monsieur,  if  we  know  you  thoroughly  as  an  author,  fairly 
well  as  actor  and  manager,  we  are  very  uncertain  when 
we  tread  on  the  ground  of  your  private  life. —  Why  do  so, 
then,  you  may  well  ask?  ...  I  understand,  but  it  is  the 
fault  of  your  first  biographer,  J.-L.  Gallois,  sieur  de 
Grimarest.  Yes,  he  began  it:  he  recounts  anecdotes,  and 
gives  us  to  understand  that  you  did  not  get  along  so  very 
well  with  Armande ;  he  says  either  too  much  or  not  enough, 
thereby  arousing  our  curiosity,  which  has  not  yet  died 
down.  That  simple  admirer  is  therefore  the  first  author 
of  the  Menage  de  Moliere,  unless  it  be  yourself,  as  I  shall 
attempt  to  demonstrate  before  long.  .  .  .  Above  all.  Mon- 
sieur, do  not  try  to  scent  out  any  excuse  on  my  part,  any 
answer  to  my  critics.  ...  I  am  speaking  to  you,  and  to 
you  alone,  as  I  owe  an  explanation  only  to  the  man  who 
is  the  principal  character  in  my  play.  ...  I  dare  to  hope 
that  you  will  discover  in  this  comedy.  Monsieur,  the  sin- 
cerest  expression  of  tenderness  for  yourself  and  the  pro- 
foundest  admiration  for  your  genius,  just  as,  if  the  distance 
between  us  were  not  so  great,  I  should  allow  myself  to 
dedicate  this  play  to  you  in  person. 

Donnay's  latest  play,  Les  Eclaireuses,  marks  no 
appreciable  departure  from  his  former  work :  it  is 

100 


MAURICE  DONNAY 


a  love  story,  touching  upon  the  question  of  Fem- 
inism at  moments,  but  it  is  primarily  a  drame  du 
coBur,  With  the  usual  clever  and  delightful  dia- 
logue, the  expected  scenes  of  sentiment,  the  poet 
recounts  the  history  of  an  ill-matched  couple,  end- 
ing with  the  ultimate  "  soul-mating "  of  the 
woman.  Man's  laws,  his  obstinate  refusal  to  look 
facts  in  the  face,  woman's  revolt  and  her  final  re- 
adjustment —  there  is  nothing  new  in  all  this ; 
but  then  Donnay  believes  that  there  is  no  new  ma- 
terial, only  love  stories,  differing  one  from  the 
other  in  settings  and  characters.  He  at  least  lives 
up  to  his  own  preachments. 


lOI 


EDMOND  ROSTAND 

Rostand  is  hardly  a  typical  modern  French 
dramatist:  his  is  an  exceptional  case,  and  his  in- 
clusion in  the  present  volume  is  intended  rather 
to  throw  into  contrast  the  other  playwrights  than 
a  necessity  to  treat  one  who  may  be  considered  in 
any  way  a  professional  purveyor  of  amusement  or 
ideas.  He  may  stand  for  the  poetic  drama,  which 
is,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  not  so  popular 
in  France  to-day  as  the  more  or  less  realistic  works 
of  such  dramatists  as  Brieux  or  Bataille. 

The  phenomenal  success  of  Cyrano  de  Bergerac 
in  1897  did  not,  fortunately,  turn  its  author  into 
a  professional  playwright;  Rostand  has  always  re- 
mained a  slow  and  painstaking  artist.  As  op- 
posed to  even  the  careful  custom  of  Hervieu,  who 
produces  on  an  average  of  one  play  every  two 
years,  he  produces  but  three  major  works  in  a 
period  of  eighteen.  Porto-Riche  in  this  respect  is 
the  only  dramatist  who  can  compare  with  him. 
With  scrupulous  care  and  unerring  judgment  he 
has  spent  years  polishing  his  verses  and  perfecting 
his  style  with  an  assiduity  rivaling  that  of  Flau- 
bert. During  the  few  years  which  preceded  the 
production  of  Chantecler,  paragraphs  in  the  news- 
papers often  appeared  relating  how  the  piece  was 
held  back  until  four  lines  in  the  third  act  assumed 
the  precise  shape  which  suited  the  poet.     The  ttn 

102 


EDMOND  ROSTAND 


years  between  the  production  of  UAiglon  and 
Chantecler  were  many  of  them  spent  on  the  latter 
play,  and  the  result,  both  as  to  general  concep- 
tion and  to  the  literary  style,  fully  justified  the 
long  years  of  labor. 

Edmond  Rostand  was  born  at  Marseilles  in 
1868.  After  spending  the  first  years  of  his  youth 
in  his  native  Midi  he  came  to  Paris  and  studied 
for  the  law.  But  the  poet  was  stronger  in  him 
than  the  lawyer,  and  soon  the  dramatist  was  to 
assert  himself  above  the  lyric  poet.  Two  trifles 
in  dramatic  form  —  Le  Gant  rouge  and  Les  Deux 
Pierrots  —  neither  of  which  has  been  performed 
in  public,  were  written  before  the  publication  of 
the  poet's  first  volume.  Les  Deux  Pierrots  had 
been  accepted  at  the  Comedie  Franqaise,  but  owing 
to  the  death  of  Theodore  de  Banville,  whose  plays 
this  one  resembled,  it  was  thought  wise  to  with- 
draw it. 

Les  Musardises,  published  in  1890,  Is  a  slight 
volume  of  charming  lyrical  verses.  While  it  was 
well  received  by  a  small  public  and  favorably  re- 
viewed by  the  critics,  its  success  was  in  no  way 
phenomenal;  it  gave  little  or  no  promise  of  the 
brilliant  flashes  which  were  later  to  illuminate 
Cyrano  and  L'Aiglon  and  Chantecler.  The  fol- 
lowing Vieux  Conte,  with  its  soft  cadences  and  cir- 
cumspect use  of  words,  will  afford  some  idea  of 
this  first  attempt : 

Dans  reparpillement  soyeux  des  cheveux  d'or, 
Et  parmi  les  blancheurs  des  coussins  toute  blanche, 
Ayant  clos  pour  cent  ans  ses  grands  yeux  de  pervenche, 
Souriant  vaguement  a  son  reve,  elle  dort. 


103 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Sa  tete  de  cote  legerement  se  penche. 

Un  vitrail  entr'ouvert  laisse  voir  le  decor 

Du  pare,  ou  les  oiseaux  ne  chantent  pas  encor, 

Car  la  Fee  endormit  chacun  d'eux  sur  sa  branche. 

Au  pied  du  lit  sommeille  un  beau  page  blondin. 

Elle  dort,  immobile  en  son  vertugadin, 

La  jupe  laissant  voir  un  bout  de  sa  babouche.  .  .  . 

Toute  rose,  elle  dort  son  sommeil  ingenu, 
Car  le  Prince  Charmant  n'est  pas  encor  venu 
Qui  doit  la  reveiller  d'un  baiser  sur  la  bouche. 

Then  came  Les  Romanesques.  Adolphe  Brls- 
son,  in  his  le  Theatre  et  les  mceurs,  quotes  Jules 
Claretie  on  the  debuts  of  the  young  dramatist. 
Just  after  the  first  little  play  was  withdrawn, 
Claretie  said  to  Rostand  : 

"  Bring  me  another  act."  [Act  in  French  may  also 
mean  one-act  play.] 

"  I  shall  bring  you  two,"  answered  the  poet.  In  a  few 
weeks'  time  Les  Romanesques  was  written  and  two  years 
later  —  after  the  usual  wait  —  it  was  performed.  I  shall 
never  forget  it. 

"  Who  is  this  Rostand  ?  "  people  inquired. 

And  those  who  knew  said :  "  He  is  an  influential  busi- 
ness man,  well  spoken  of,  one  of  the  big-wigs  of  the  Comp- 
toir  (tescompte.  He  has  made  use  of  his  influence  to  suc- 
ceed as  a  writer." 

"  Then  he's  an  amateur?  " 

"  Undoubtedly  — " 

After  the  first  act  the  audience  was  amazed  —  A  de- 
licious trifle! 

And  those  who  knew  again  busied  themselves  — 

"  We  are  not  at  all  surprised.  That  book  of  his  was 
full  of  promise." 

104 


EDMOND  ROSTAND 


"  Has  he  published  a  book?  " 

"Yes:  Les  Musardises.  .  .  .  Very  remarkable." 

Les  Romanesques  —  known  in  English  as  The 
Romancers  or  The  Fantasticks  —  is  an  ingenious 
and  altogether  charming  bit  of  high  comedy.  It 
smacks  of  Italy,  and  Banville,  and  Musset,  yet 
there  is  that  distinctive  touch  which  makes  of  it 
an  original  creation. 

Percinet  and  Sylvette,  two  romantic  youngsters, 
enamored  of  each  other  and  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet,  which  they  read  together  sitting  on  the  top 
of  an  old  wall,  are  so  filled  with  romantic  notions 
that  they  are  convinced  of  the  fact  that  they  are 
separated  through  the  hatred  of  their  respective 
fathers.  Meeting  secretly  in  a  corner  of  the  old 
park,  they  plan  to  elope.  But  the  fathers,  who 
are  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  best  of  friends,  realize 
that  the  only  way  of  uniting  their  wayward  chil- 
dren is  by  pretending  to  be  mortal  enemies.  They 
employ  therefore  the  braggadocio  Straforel,  who 
will  on  the  evening  of  the  elopement  attempt  a 
"  first-class  abduction  "  of  the  little  heroine.  This 
villain,  then,  together  with  his  mock-desperadoes, 
appears  upon  the  scene  at  the  appointed  hour  when 
Percinet  is  about  to  meet  his  sweetheart,  descend 
upon  her,  and  attempt  to  carry  her  off.  Percinet, 
who  lies  in  wait,  springs  to  her  rescue  and,  sword 
in  hand,  dispels  the  ravishers,  and  turns  to  Stra- 
forel. Straforel,  knowing  well  the  part  he  has  to 
play,  allows  the  young  man  to  disarm  him,  and 
falls  a  moment  later,  apparently  dead.  The 
lovers  are  united,  the  fathers  pretend  to  be 
reconciled  and  agree  to  the  match.     The   "  tag  " 

105 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

to  the  act,  is  a  touch  of  the  true  Rostandesque: 

Bergamin.  [In  an  undertone,  to  Straforel,  who 
rises.'\  What?  What's  this?  This  paper  —  and  your 
signature?     What  is  it,  if  you  please? 

Straforel.  [Saluting  Bergamin.]  Monsieur,  it  is 
my  bill !     [He  falls  to  the  ground  again.^ 

So  far,  so  good,  but  in  the  second  act  the  lovers 
learn  the  truth  of  the  matter.  Their  disillusion- 
ment is  complete,  and  Percinet  resolves  to  go  away 
in  search  of  adventure  and  romance.  In  the  last 
act  he  returns,  only  to  find  that  Sylvette  herself 
has  been  seeking  her  own  romance,  for  Straforel, 
under  a  noble  pseudonym,  has  been  writing  ardent 
love-letters  to  her.  Both  are  weary  of  searching 
for  something  which  seems  to  vanish  when  they 
seek  it,  and  both  have  learned  at  last  that  true 
romance  cannot  be  sought.  Percinet  has  wan- 
dered only  to  find  his  happiness  at  home. 

Percinet.  ...  I  adore  you ! 

Sylvette.  After  all  our  disappointments? 

Percinet.  That  makes  no  difference. 

Sylvette.  But  our  fathers  deceived  us  most  outrage- 
ously ! 

Percinet.  What  of  it  ?  Now  —  in  my  heart  —  it  is 
day — ■ 

Sylvette.  But  they  only  pretended  to  be  mortal  ene- 
mies? 

Percinet.  Did  we  pretend  that  we  loved  each  other? 

And  a  little  farther  on : 

Sylvette.  .  .  .  We  did  love,  and  we  thought  our- 
selves wicked. 

Io6 


EDMOND  ROSTAND 


Percinet.  We  were,  and  let  us  feel  pleasantly  re- 
morseful about  it !  As  it  is  only  the  intention  that  counts, 
we  were  really  wicked,  because  we  thought  we  were. 

Sylvette.  .  .  .  True,  but  I  am  sorry  .  .  .  that  our 
danger  was  only  imaginary. 

Percinet.     It  was  real,  because  we  thought  it  so. 

The  moral  is  pleasantly  told,  If  moral  the  play 
can  be  admitted  to  have :  happiness  lies  within 
one's  self,  and  true  romance  is  in  the  heart.  The 
next  play,  La  Princesse  lointaine,  more  serious  in 
intent,  more  recondite  and  involved  in  style,  has 
certain  analogies  with  the  earlier  comedy;  here 
the  poet  tells  us  that  the  pursuit  of  an  ideal  —  in 
this  case,  physical  and  by  inference  spiritual  beauty 
—  is  in  itself  worth  as  much  as  its  attainment. 

Prince  Joffroy  Rudel,  troubador  of  Blaye,  has 
heard  from  pilgrims  returning  from  the  East,  of 
a  marvelously  beautiful  princess:  Melissinde  of 
Oriont,  Countess  of  Tripoli.  In  spite  of  grave 
illness  he  sets  out  on  the  perilous  journey  from 
Provence  to  see  the  lady  of  his  dreams.  The 
play  opens  on  the  galley,  "  which  appears  to  have 
come  a  long  way  through  very  tempestuous 
weather:  sails  ripped,  yards  broken,  ropes  in  a 
tangle,  mast  started.  There  are  evidences  of 
fighting  having  taken  place  on  board:  spots  of 
blood,  weapons  strewn  here  ind  there.  Just  be- 
fore dawn.  Gray  and  transparent  sky  growing 
pale.  Stars  vanishing.  Sea  of  a  violet  hue,  with 
foggy  streaks.  Indistinct  horizon.  By  degrees, 
as  the  act  progresses,  the  light  increases."  ^    There 

1  This  and  the  following  quotations  are  from  the  translation 
of  Charles  Renauld. 

107 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

is  discontent  among  the  crew :  they  begin  to  doubt 
of  their  quest,  and  are  hungry  and  worn  out. 
"  What,"  asks  the  scholar  Erasmus  of  Father 
Trophime,  "  does  he  gain,  for  instance — ?  " 

Father  Trophime.  All! 

Erasmus.     Oh! 

Father  Trophime.     Yes,  he  gains,  at  least  my  thought 
is  such. 
Through  every  great  disinterested  act; 
As  much  as  on  Crusaders'  deeds,  I  feel 
That  he  must  smile  on  love  that's  true  and  pure. 

Erasmus.     He  cannot  set  this  love  adventure  here 
Beside  the  rescue  of  the  Holy  Tomb ! 

Father  Trophime.     His  object's  not  this  one  deliv- 
erance. 
For  think  you  not  that,  if  he  wished  to  chase 
A  horde  of  infidels  from  off  the  Tomb, 
One  sweep  of  angel  wings  would  be  enough? 
Far  greater  his  design.     Be  sure  it  is  to  call 
All  those  who  live  in  dullness,  pride  and  sloth 
Away  from  selfish,  dark  indifference, 
To  throw  them,  strong  and  singing,  in  the  fray. 
Devotion-daft  to  seeking  death  afar, 
Inspired  by  forgetfulness  of  self. 

A  page  later  Father  Trophime  says :  "  All  noble 
aims  bring  forth  a  nobler  aim." 

This  striving  for  an  ideal  and  its  treatment  in 
La  Princess  lointaine  is  a  curious  foreshadowing 
of  the  principal  theme  of  Chantecler.  Rostand 
has  never  lost  his  early  healthy  optimism. 

The  second  act  takes  place  in  Melisslnde's 
palace.  The  Emperor  Manuel  is  about  to  marry 
her  and,  being  of  a  jealous  disposition,  has  placed 

io8 


EDMOND  ROSTAND 


guards  about  her.  Meanwhile,  Rudel  and  his 
crew  have  landed,  and  the  Prince  intends  to  pro- 
ceed at  once  to  the  palace.  Melissinde  has  heard 
of  Rudel;  she  reads  his  poems,  and  nurses  her 
ideal  from  afar.  She  "  thirsts  for  love's  sub- 
limity." Having  learned  of  the  arrival  of  the 
foreign  galley,  the  guards  redouble  their  vigilance 
over  the  princess.  But  a  rich  Jew  gains  admit- 
tance to  her  presence,  on  the  pretext  of  selling  her 
goods  from  the  Orient;  he  tells  her  that  a  poet 
from  Provence  has  landed  and  wishes  to  see  her 
at  once.  Not  long  after,  Rudel's  friend  Bert- 
rand,  after  fighting  his  way  to  her,  tells  Melissinde 
of  his  mission,  and  informs  her  that  Rudel  lies 
dying  on  his  galley  and  should  like  to  see  his  loved 
one  before  it  is  too  late. 

Bertrand.     Make  haste !     I  promised ! 
Melissinde.  But  —  but 

you,  Sir  Knight, 

Who  are  you  then  ? 
Bertrand.  Bertrand  d'Allamanon, 

His  brother,  friend  —  Come  on  then,  quickly! 
Melissinde.  No! 

The  next  act  is  the  same  scene  as  the  preceding 
Melissinde's  reason  for  refusing  to  see  Rudel  is 
not  at  once  made  clear,  but  we  are  not  left  long 
in  doubt,  for  she  begins  to  make  love  to  Bertrand; 
entranced  by  her  beauty,  and  rapidly  succumbing 
to  her  advances,  he  betrays  his  friend,  deciding  to 
remain  with  the  Princess.  For  a  moment  both 
are  stricken  with  remorse  as  a  voice  from  the  out- 
side shouts  that  a  galley  in  the  harbor  has  hoisted 
the  black  flag,  but  the  galley  proves  to  be  that  of 

109 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

the  chief  guard,  whom  Bertrand  had  slain.     They 
now  resolve  to  see  Rudel. 

The  last  act  takes  us  back  to  the  deck  of  the 
galley,  where  Rudel  lies  on  his  death-bed.  The 
Jew,  stung  by  an  insult  cast  in  his  teeth  by  Bert- 
rand, has  been  telling  the  tale  of  Rudel's  betrayal, 
and  is  flung  into  the  sea  by  the  incredulous  crew. 
Rudel  too  has  believed  nothing  of  the  story. 
Then  in  the  distance  Melissinde's  magnificent  gal- 
ley is  descried.  The  Princess  boards  the  stranger 
ship,  and  the  very  sailors  weep  for  joy:  their 
ideal,  the  end  which  they  strove,  is  at  last  realized  I 
Then  she  is  brought  into  Rudel's  presence.  "  His 
eyes  open  as  he  sees  her,  then  grow  larger  and  full 
of  light,  and  a  smile  comes  to  his  lips."  He  for- 
gets his  troubles  and  sufferings,  and  she  is  glorified 
and  lifted  above  mortal  things;  both  are  happy, 
and  not  even  death  can  destroy  their  happiness. 
The  ideal  of  each  has  been  the  quest  and  that  is 
over.     He  dies,  amid  the  splendor  of  the  sunset. 

Melissinde,  The  sky's  aglow! 

Behold!     A  prince's  and  a  poet's  death 
Is  yours,  with  head  at  rest  as  dream  foretold, 
In  love,  in  grace  and  majesty  supreme! 
You  die  with  heaven's  blessing,  undistressed 
By  trappings  and  by  sights  funereal; 
In  flowers'  fragrance  and  in  harmony, 
A  death  that's  spared  all  pain  and  bitterness.  .  .  , 
Close  not  his  eyes;  he's  gazing  at  me  still! 

SoRiMONDE.     [Terrifted.l     His  hands  are  locked 
around  your  hair! 

Melissinde.  It's  his! 

\_JVtth  a  dagger,  which  she  takes  from  Joffrgy's 
belt,  she  cuts  her  hair,  that  remains  in  the  hands  of 
IIO 


EDMOND  ROSTAND 


RuDEL.     The  hair  falls  across  his  body.^ 
Bertrand.     Not  that !     It  is  too  much ! 
Melissinde.     [Without  turning  toward  Bertrand.] 

Who  spoke? 
Bertrand.     Too  much! 

Melissinde.     'Twas  you,  Bertrand?    We  must  for- 
swear ourselves.  .  .  . 
My  soul  at  last  was  sister  to  a  soul, 
And  I  am  different. 

[Bertrand  then  decides  to  continue  his  way  to 
the  Holy  Land.] 

Melissinde.     Farewell !     No    tears  —  I    go    to    holy 
peace. 

I've,  learnt  at  last  the  greatest  thing  of  all  — 
Father  Trophime.     [Kneeling  by  Joffroy's  body.'\ 

Undying  love  is  work  for  Heaven  done! 

And  the  curtain  falls. 

Something  of  the  doctrine  of  love  set  forth  in 
La  Princesse  lointaine  is  to  be  found  in  the  next 
play,  La  Samaritatne,  which  was  first  performed  in 
1897,  two  years  after  the  Princesse.  Compared 
with  the  later  works  it  is  slight.  It  is  a  poetic  set- 
ting of  the  story  of  the  Woman  of  Samaria. 
There  Is  a  certain  human  element  In  this  play;  that 
is  to  say,  the  poet  applied  himself  to  the  task  of 
conceiving  Photlne  as  a  very  passionate  and  lov- 
ing woman,  not  merely  a  wicked  Magdalen  who  re- 
pents. In  an  Interview  he  once  said:  "  Is  it  not 
a  most  extraordinary  drama  of  conscience?  Im- 
agine Llane  de  Pougy  going  to  the  Bois,  meeting 
Christ  there,  and  suddenly  returning  to  Paris, 
bearing  only  one  desire  in  her  breast,  one  mad 
wish:  to  convert  her  compatriots?  "     The  simple 

III 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Bible  story  is  amplified  and  turned  into  an  elab- 
orate picture,  a  lovely  "  Evangile." 

Still,  there  was  little  indication  of  what  was 
to  come  in  the  brilliant  and  astonishing  Cyrano. 
Les  Romanesques  was  slight,  La  Princesse  loin- 
taine  hesitating,  La  Samaritaine  quiet.  Rostand 
was  as  yet  appreciated  by  a  few,  who  esteemed  him 
merely  as  a  charming  poet,  possessing  some  in- 
genuity and  skill  in  writing  poetic  plays.  Paris, 
and  soon  after  the  whole  of  the  civilized  world, 
were  to  be  astounded  by  the  famous  Cyrano,  at 
the  Porte  Sainte-Martin  Theater  during  the  same 
year,  1897,  in  which  La  Samaritaine  first  saw  the 
light. 

It  may  arouse  no  small  amount  of  curiosity  in 
some  future  historian  of  the  theater  to  account  for 
the  unprecedented  enthusiasm  provoked  by  Cyrano 
de  Bergerac;  he  may  trace  its  form  to  Victor 
Hugo,  he  may  justly  conclude  that  it  contains  noth- 
ing new  or  original,  or  he  may  finally  decide  that 
it  came  at  the  psychological  moment,  when  the 
Theatre  Libre  was  in  its  decline,  and  the  public 
was  tired  of  Realism.  But  he  will  be  wide  of  the 
mark.  Madame  Rostand's  statement,  recounted 
by  M.  Brisson  in  the  work  above  quoted,  comes  as 
near  the  truth  as  any  single  sentence  well  can: 
"  Certain  people  exist  who  always  inspire  sym- 
pathy simply  because  they  possess  charm.  Isn't 
it  the  same  way  with  the  mind  and  what  it  cre- 
ates? "  Charm,  if  it  may  be  taken  to  include  joy 
in  life,  optimism,  ideals,  beauty  in  and  for  itself, 
is  what  makes  of  Cyrano  one  of  the  finest  dramatic 

112 


EDMOND  ROSTAND 


and  literary  works  of  the  generation.  The  hypo- 
thetical critic  of  the  future  may  be  right  in  at- 
tributing to  Rostand  the  desire  to  revolt  against 
the  sordidness  of  Naturalism,  and  certain  it  is 
that  this  play  came  at  a  time  when  the  ideas  set 
forth  by  Antoine  were  either  so  universally  ac- 
cepted as  to  provoke  little  opposition,  or  that  they 
were  being  gradually  absorbed  and  modified  by 
writers  with  a  more  genial  outlook  on  life.  Ros- 
tand was,  of  course,  too  far  aloof  from  the  contro- 
versies of  the  day  deliberately  to  write  a  propa- 
ganda piece,  but  he  must  have  felt  the  irksome 
yoke  imposed  by  the  more  ardent  followers  of 
Antoine. 

Together  with  the  charm  of  the  character  of 
that  true  Gascon,  poet  and  swordsman,  faithful 
friend  and  poseur,  is  the  charm  of  the  style,  that 
inimitable  mixture  of  Victor  Hugo,  Musset,  and 
—  Rostand.  But  beyond  these,  we  are  called 
upon  to  admire  the  extreme  dexterity  with  which 
the  plot  is  handled,  and  the  truly  amazing  bril- 
liancy of  the  speeches  and  the  lines.  If  nothing 
else,  Cyrano  is  a  tour  de  force  of  unequaled 
cleverness.  Take  for  instance  the  famous  speech 
addressed,  in  the  First  Act,  to  Valvert,  on  the  sub- 
ject of  his  (Cyrano's)  nose: 

Cyrano.  .  .  .  You  might  say  —  oh,  Dieu !  any  num- 
ber of  things  —  as  you  vary  the  tone  of  voice  —  for  in- 
stance: Aggressively:  "  Ah,  Monsieur,  had  I  such  a  nose, 
I  should  have  it  amputated  at  once!"  Amicably:  "It 
must  surely  be  in  the  way  when  you  drink!  Have  a  bowl 
made  for  yourself!  "  Descriptively:  "  It's  a  rock,  a  peak, 
a    cape  I    What,    a   cape?     Indeed,    it's    a    peninsula!" 

113 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Curiously:  "What  do  you  use  that  oblong  capsule  for? 
An  escritoire  or  a  scissors' box ?  "  Graciously:  "  Are  you 
so  enamored  of  birds  that  you  afFord  them  the  hospitality 
of  that  perch  for  their  little  feet?  "  Truculently:  "  And, 
Monsieur,  when  you  smoke,  do  not  people  cry  out  that  the 
chimney  is  afire,  seeing  the  smoke  come  forth  from  your 
nose?"  Considerately:  "Take  care  or  your  head,  over- 
weighted by  that  huge  mass,  will  fall  to  the  ground !  " 
Tenderly :  "  Have  a  little  parasol  made  for  it  for  fear  the 
sun  should  fade  its  color !  "  Pedantically :  "  That  animal 
which  Aristophanes  calls  Hippocamelelephantelos  must 
surely  have  had  a  similar  lump  of  flesh  and  blood  beneath 
his  forehead !  "  Cavalierly :  "  Is  that  hook  in  the  height 
of  fashion?  It's  really  most  useful  to  hang  your  hat  on!  " 
Emphatically:  "  Surely,  oh  majestic  nose,  no  wind  can 
give  it  a  cold  over  its  entire  extent  —  unless  it  be  the 
mistral !  "  Dramatically :  "  It's  the  Red  Sea  when  it 
bleeds!"  Admiringly:  "What  a  sign-board  for  a  per- 
fumer!" Lyrically:  "Is  it  a  conch,  and  are  you  a 
Triton?"  Simply:  "When  does  one  visit  this  monu- 
ment? "...  Like  a  peasant:  "  Hi  there,  is  that  a  nose? 
Oh  my!  It's  a  little  pumpkin  or  a  big  turnip!  "  In  a 
military  manner:  "  Advance  against  the  cavalry!  "  From 
a  practical  point  of  view :  "  Why  don't  you  put  it  in  a 
lottery?  It  will  surely  win  first  prize!"  Or,  if  you 
wish  to  parody  Pyramus  as  he  sighs:  "  Here  is  the  nose 
which  spoils  its  master's  harmony!  It  blushes  for  its 
treachery!  "  Something  like  that,  my  dear  friend,  is  what 
you  might  have  said,  if  you  had  a  spark  of  wit  or  learning 
in  you.  .  .  . 

There  are  many  such  speeches  in  Cyrano  and 
L'Aiglon;  it  may  be  that  they  were  written  with  a 
particular  actor  or  actress  in  view  —  Coquelin  in 
one  case,  Sarah  Bernhardt  in  the  other  —  but  the 
fact  remains  that  they  are  in  keeping  with  the  rest 
of  the  play  and  with  the  character  in  whose  mouth 

114 


EDMOND  ROSTAND 


they  are  put.  They  are  the  old-fashioned  tirades 
brought  up-to-date  and  thoroughly  humanized; 
vivid,  joyful,  briUiant.  This  same  spirit  of 
bravura  which  incites  Cyrano  to  perform  exploits 
of  almost  superhuman  endeavor,  animates  the 
poet.  He  enjoys  Cyrano's  throwing  his  purseful 
of  gold  onto  the  stage  and  crying  "  Mais  quel 
geste !  " ;  he  is  with  the  gentle  prompter  under  the 
balcony,  at  the  ramparts  of  Arras,  and  in  the  con- 
vent garden;  he  stands  close  by  the  Due  de  Reich- 
stadt  as  he  delivers  his  "  pas-prisonnier  mais  " 
speech  to  Metternich;  he  watches  at  the  bedside  of 
Napoleon's  unfortunate  son.  This  identification 
of  the  poet  with  his  characters  "an^tHeir  actions 
IS  undoQ^tedty  what  makes  of  his  plays  living 
works;  their  verve  is  his  verve,  their  esprit,  his 
own! 

"^'Aiglon,  performed  for  the  first  time  in  1900, 
with  Bernhardt  in  the  role  of  the  Duke,  came  as 
something  of  a  disappointment  after  Cyrano;  in- 
deed, it  is  hard  to  conceive  of  anything  but  an  anti- 
climax after  that  play.  The  subject  is  rather  epic 
than  dramatic,  and  its  inordinate  length,  the  weak 
character  of  the  protagonist,  the  somewhat  dis- 
unified  plot,  militate  against  the  piece.  Yet  it  con- 
tains many  admirable  scenes  and  speeches,  that 
scene  for  instance  where  the  Duke  is  playing  with 
his  toy  soldiers.  Here  the  whole  pathos  of  the 
tragedy  of  Napoleon  is  brought  to  us  in  a  simple 
bit  of  stage  business.  The  weakly  youth  is  ar- 
ranging his  soldiers  in  order  of  battle,  and  is 
surprised  by  Metternich.  "  And  where  are  the 
Austrians?  inquires  Metternich.  "They  have 
all  fled!  "  answers  the  enthusiastic  youth.     Turn 

115 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

to  the  mirror  episode,  and  the  many  scenes  in 
which  the  old  soldier  Flambeau  appears,  and  the 
Field  of  Wagram  —  effective  as  stage  pictures, 
impressive  as  literature  I 

Yet  in  spite  of  its  manifold  charms  and  its  par- 
ticular scenes  it  fails  as  an  artistic  unit.  The 
poet's  tendency,  too,  to  juggle  with  words,  be- 
comes more  sharply  accentuated.  His  preciosity 
in  Chantecler  becomes  in  places  a  fault.  Chante- 
cler's  well-known  speech  in  the  third  act,  is  a  point 
in  question: 

Oui,  Coquards  cocardes  de  coquilles, 
Coquardeaux  Coquebins,  Coquelets,  Cocodrilles, 
Au  lieu  d'etre  coquets  de  vos  cocoricos, 
Vous  reviez  d'etre,  6  Coqs!  de  droles  de  cocos! 
Oui,  Mode!  pour  que  d'eux  tu  t'emberlucoquasses, 
Coquine!  ils  n'ont  voulu,  ces  Coqs,  qu'etre  cocasses! 
Mais,  Coquins!  le  cocasse  exige  un  Nicolet! 
On  n'est  jamais  assez  cocasse  quand  on  Test! 
Mais  qu'un   Coq,   au  coccyx,  ait  plus  que  vous  de 

ruches, 
Vous  passez,  Cocodes,  comme  des  coqueluches! 
Mais  songez  que  demain,  Coquef redouilles !  mais 
Songez  qu'apres-demain,  malgre,  Coqueplumets ! 
Tous  ces  coqueluchons  dont  on  s'emberlucoque, 
Un  plus  cocasse  Coq  peut  sortir  d'une  coque, 
—  Puisque  le  Cocassier,  pour  varier  ses  stocks, 
Peut  plus  cocassement  cocufier  des  Coqs !  — 
Et  vous  ne  serez  plus,  vieux  Cocatres  qu'on  casse, 
Que  des  Coqs  rococos  pour  ce  Coq  plus  cocasse ! 

Un  Coq.     Et  le  moyen  de  ne  pas  etre  rococo  ? 

Chantecler.     C'est  de  ne  penser  qu'au  — 

Un  Coq.  Qu'au—? 

Tous  LES  Coqs.  Qu'au — ? 

Chantecler.  Cocorico ! 

Ii6 


EDMOND  ROSTAND 


This  is  diabolically  clever,  and  the  play  is  full  of 
such  speeches. 

And  as  the  poet's  skill  increased  his  knowledge 
of  life  deepened.  In  the  first  of  the  plays  which 
may  be  taken  as  a  serious  comment  on  life,  La 
Princesse  lointaine,  Rostand  wrote  of  the  ideal 
pursued  for  its  own  sake,  in  La  Samaritaine  he  told 
of  a  woman's  love  and  her  redemption,  in  Cyrano 
he  painted  asplendul^xharacter^  upon  a  gorgeous 
and  joyous  Background,  in  L'Aiglon,  a  pathetic  fig- 
ure with  a  tragic  end;  in  Chantecler,  the  child  of 
his  early  maturity,  he  preaches  the  gospel  of  work. 
Not  that  he  wrote  a  thesis  play  —  he  would  smile 
at  the  notion  —  but  out  of  the  depths  of  his  being 
he  created  a  work  of  living  art  which  embodied, 
as  all  great  work  must,  his  inmost  beliefs.  Chan- 
tecler  is  Rostand's  ideal  of  manhood;  he  is  not  a 
hero,  but  he  believes  himself  to  be  such,  and, 
just  as  Percinet  said  to  Sylvette,  they  thought  them- 
selves wicked,  and  they  were !  Chantecler  thinks 
himself  the  master,  and  he  is;  he  believes  that  it 
is  his  Corcorico  which  makes  the  sun  rise,  and 
when  at  last  he  finds  that  it  rises  without  his  aid, 
he  is  momentarily  disillusioned;  but  through  the 
love  of  the  Pheasant-Hen  and  through  renewed 
faith  in  the  nobility  of  his  work,  such  as  it  is,  he 
resolves  to  do  his  own  small  part,  and  help  the 
sun  to  rise. 

Rostand  has  explained  in  many  interviews  his 
own  intentions;  I  shall  therefore  repeat  his  own 
comments  on  the  various  characters,  as  retold  in 
Marco  F.  Liberma's  The  Story  of  Chantecler: 

117 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

"  Chantecler  was  to  be  the  drama  of  human  en- 
deavor grappling  with  life.  The  Cock  represents 
man  loving  passionately  his  chosen  vocation,  man 
who  has  faith  in  his  work,  and  who  will  allow 
nothing  to  sway  him  in  its  accomplishment.  He 
meets  the  Pheasant,  representing  woman,  the 
modern  woman:  emancipated,  independent,  dom- 
ineering; jealous  of  the  male's  high  task;  who 
means  to  enslave  him  to  her  sole  affection ;  and  who 
yields  only  after  she  has  been  overcome,  brought 
to  submission,  with,  perhaps,  the  secret  hope  that 
she  may  still  some  day  hold  sway  over  him  and 
thus  be  avenged.  We  have  here  the  eternal 
struggle  that  opens  with  the  Book  of  Genesis, 
the  struggle  to  reach  some  compromise  by  which 
man  and  woman  are  to  be  made  cognizant  of  their 
respective  places,  accept  the  station  in  life  imposed 
upon  them  by  virtue  of  some  yet  unrecognized, 
but  none  the  less  stringent,  restrictions  in  their 
natures.  On  the  one  hand  we  have  the  will  to  do, 
untrammeled  by  physical  and  social  limitations  on 
which  nevertheless  hangs  the  very  existence  of  the 
race;  on  the  other  hand,  the  will  to  be,  for  the 
purpose  that  transcends  man's  very  dream.  And 
it  is  because  this  passiveness  demanded  of  woman, 
and  through  which  her  power  for  good  over  man 
seems  doubled  a  hundredfold,  arouses  in  this  day 
opposition  so  fierce  as  to  endanger  the  very  life 
of  the  family,  the  poet  thought  it  well  to  sound  a 
note  of  warning.  Chantecler  and  the  Pheasant 
are  the  will  and  the  feelings  at  war  with  each  other. 
The  will  and  the  affections  are  at  war  in  the  breast 
of  each  one  of  us." 

ii8 


EDMOND  ROSTAND 


With  this  basis  the  poet  went  to  work  to  write 
a  modern  play,  which  was  poetic  at  the  same  time. 
He  has  shown  that  it  is  possible  to  be  poetic  about 
the  things  of  the  age:  a  reception,  a  telephone,  a 
fad.  "  Characters  garbed  in  animal  dress,"  he 
once  exclaimed,  "  expressing  themselves  like  hu- 
man beings, —  like  Parisians  of  the  day.  What 
a  find !  And  furthermore,  what  an  opportunity 
to  speak  of  things  in  nature,  to  be  deeply  moved 
by  flowers,  birds,  the  bits  of  grass,  or  the  insect 
.  .  .  and  what  a  setting !  No,  really,  a  poet  could 
not  wish  for  a  more  beautiful  theme !  " 

The  method  of  presenting  his  story  was  well- 
chosen,  although  it  was  so  original  that  the  good 
theater-goers  of  Paris  were  puzzled.  The  play 
was  not  a  success,  and  enjoyed  a  comparatively 
short  run.  Too  clever,  too  obscure,  too  long, 
were  the  common  verdicts.  It  was  again  an  in- 
stance of  the  insularity  of  the  French  public,  which 
was  the  last,  by  the  way,  to  see  Maeterlinck's 
Blue  Bird:  St.  Petersburg,  London,  New  York, 
and  Chicago  had  been  flocking  to  see  the  feerie 
before  the  Theatre  Rejane  opened  its  doors  to  the 
most  famous  play  of  the  time. 

In  1910  a  pantomime,  accompanied  by  a  poem, 
was  produced  at  the  Theatre  Sarah  Bernhardt: 
it  was  Rostand's  Le  Bois  sacre,  written  some  years 
previously.  This  trifle  is  a  parody  on  the  gods  of 
ancient  Greece,  more  in  the  style  of  Les  Roman- 
esques than  the  later  plays;  graceful,  witty,  slight. 
It  deserves  no  special  mention. 

119 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Rostand  achieved  fame  at  an  early  age:  ap- 
pointed Officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  in  1900, 
elected  to  the  Academy  in  1903,  he  is  undoubtedly 
the  best-known  dramatist  in  France.  Yet  he  lives 
in  modest  retirement,  assiduously  working  at  his 
Faust,  which  was  announced  some  years  ago.  He 
has  passed  the  critical  period  of  his  artistic  career, 
and  there  is  little  fear  that  he  will  accede  to  popu- 
lar demand,  and  hasten  new  works  to  the  stage,  or 
in  any  way  cheapen  an  art  which  his  country  justly 
holds  in  honor.  Together  with  Porto-Riche,  he 
lives  for  his  art  alone,  and  deigns  to  allow  his 
plays  to  become  public  property  only  after  they 
have  undergone  the  most  minute  and  painstaking 
revision. 

Rostand  is  happy  in  the  pursuit  of  his  ideal,  and 
with  his  love  for  it  he  may  justly  say  with  his  own 
Father  Trophime: 

Oui,  les  grandes  amours  travaillent  pour  le  ciel. 


120 


JULES  LEMAITRE 

"  Criticism,"  says  Jules  Lemaitre,  "  is  the  art 
of  enjoying  books."  M.  Lemaitre  has  practiced 
what  he  preached,  and  in  some  thirty  thiclc  vol- 
umes he  has  amassed  his  enjoyment  of  books  and 
plays.  Les  Impressions  de  theatre  and  Les  Con- 
temporains  have  already  assumed  a  place  which 
they  will  long  occupy  in  the  front  rank  of  original 
thought  during  the  last  part  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century. 

When  Lemaitre  speaks  of  Shakespeare  and  Mo- 
liere,  it  is  as  if  he  had  never  heard  of  either  be- 
fore; he  records  his  first  impressions  of  Hamlet 
and  Le  Misanthrope  as  if  these  plays  had  just 
come  fresh  from  the  press.  Unhampered  by  the 
accumulated  prejudices  of  former  generations,  he 
analyzes  in  a  leisurely  and  orthodox  manner  each 
work,  recording  with  absolute  sincerity  his  opinions 
on  Georges  Ohnet  and  Racine,  Paul  Bourget  and 
Rousseau.  When  he  tells  us  that  Racine  is  worth 
reading,  that  the  author  of  the  Ironmaster  is 
vastly  overrated,  that  his  novels  have  no  literary 
merit,  we  feel  readily  inclined  to  believe  him. 
His  independence  of  thought  is  naively  manifested 
in  his  essay  on  Maupassant,  in  which  he  says  that 
he  was  at  first  prone  to  underrate  the  genius  of  the 
young  writer  simply  because  the  great  Flaubert 
spoke  of  him  in  such  glowing  terms.  Here  is  the 
opening  paragraph  of  that  essay: 

121 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

I  used  to  go  from  time  to  time  to  see  Gustave  Flaubert 
at  Croisset  (that  was  in  1880).  It  appears  that  I  met 
Maupassant  there  one  day,  just  as  he  was  leaving  for 
Paris.  At  least,  that  is  what  Maupassant  says.  I  really 
don't  remember :  I  have  the  most  capricious  memory  in  the 
world.  But  I  recall  clearly  that  Flaubert  spoke  enthusi- 
astically of  his  young  friend,  and  that  he  read  to  me,  with 
that  sonorous  voice  of  his,  a  story  which  appeared  some 
months  later  in  the  volume  entitled  Des  Vers.  It  had  to 
do  with  the  separation  of  two  lovers,  after  a  last  walk  in 
the  country:  he  was  brutal,  she  quietly  desperate.  I 
thought  it  not  at  all  bad,  but  I  was  somewhat  on  my  guard 
because  of  the  aged  Flaubert's  extravagant  admiration,  so 
that  I  did  not  at  that  time  realize  that  it  was  really  very 
good.     Maupassant  was  at  that  time,  etc.  .  .  . 

This  informal,  easy,  conversational  way  of 
writing  criticism  makes  Lemaitre  delightful  read- 
ing, so  that  we  too  are  likely  perhaps  to  behave  as 
the  critic  did  in  the  presence  of  the  "  aged  Flau- 
bert," and  be  on  our  guard,  and  fail  to  see  the  ex- 
traordinary merit  of  the  criticism.  Profundity  of 
thought  and  heaviness  of  style  do  not  of  necessity 
go  hand  in  hand.  Lemaitre  is  as  profound  as 
Brunetiere,  the  only  difference  between  the  two 
being  that  Lemaitre  amuses  us  with  unexpected 
quips  and  turns,  amusing  anecdotes,  and  helps  us 
to  retain  important  points  which  might  otherwise 
escape  us,  while  Brunetiere,  saying  perhaps  as 
much,  risks  tiring  us,  because  his  method  of  pre- 
sentation lacks  lightness,  variety,  esprit.  Sarcey, 
that  benevolent  despot  of  the  French  stage  for 
nearly  half  a  century,  is  more  nearly  akin  to  Le- 
maitre than  Brunetiere,  by  reason  of  his  simplicity 
and  occasionally  brutal  sincerity;  but  Sarcey  is  a 
literary  bourgeois,  Lemaitre  an  aristocrat. 

122 


JULES  LEMAITRE 


A  critic,  and  above  all  a  dramatic  critic,  who 
ventures  into  the  field  of  drama,  runs  grave  risks. 
Do  not  his  brother  critics  hold  him  up  to  the  stand- 
ards for  which  he  himself  has  stood  —  and  many 
others  for  which  he  has  not  —  and  condemn  him 
for  falling  short  of  those  principles  the  shatter- 
ing of  which  he  has  so  often  censured  in  others? 
Lemaitre's  first  play,  Revoltee,  was  produced  in 
1889.  It  was  not  a  success,  and  was  received  with 
a  good  deal  of  adverse  comment. 

By  the  year  1889  Lemaitre  was  fairly  well 
known  in  the  literary  world.  Born  in  a  little 
town  in  Touraine  in  1853,  he  received  his  early 
education  in  his  native  province,  pursued  his  stud- 
ies later  in  Paris,  taught  school  in  Le  Havre  and 
two  other  French  cities,  and,  for  a  short  time,  in 
Algiers.  At  the  age  of  thirty-one  he  permanently 
established  himself  in  Paris,  where  he  had  been 
summoned  to  fill  the  position  of  dramatic  critic 
on  the  Journal  des  Debats.  At  that  time  he  was 
known  to  a  few  readers  as  the  author  of  a  slight 
volume  of  youthful  verses,  some  of  them  crude 
and  some  delicate,  called  Les  Medallions  (1880), 
and  some  of  those  essays  which  were  later  col- 
lected in  Les  Contemporains.  The  poems  were 
followed  seven  years  later  by  a  collection  of  short 
stories,  Serenus,  which  gave  evidence  of  real  cre- 
ative power,  and  proved  the  writer  well  capable  of 
telling  a  story  in  direct  and  convincing  terms. 
The  versatile  young  man  was  spreading  his  wings, 
then,  in  the  late  'eighties;  but  as  he  manifested  a 
desire  to  fly  in  the  direction  of  the  stage,  he  a 
dramatic  critic,  his  confreres  berated  him  severely, 
and  declared  —  with  more  or  less  truth  —  that 

123 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

he  had  not  proved  himself  a  dramatist  by  writing 
Revoltee.  For  the  next  few  years  he  continued 
writing  plays,  finding  time  however  to  write  one 
of  his  finest  works,  the  novel  Les  Rois  (1893). 
As  we  are  primarily  concerned  with  Lemaitre  the 
dramatist,  we  must  content  ourselves  by  accepting 
the  verdict  of  critics  and  the  public,  and  recording 
the  fact  that  Lemaitre's  only  novel  remains  one  of 
the  most  popular  and  highly-thought-of  novels  of 
the  generation.  Contes  blancs  (1900)  and  En 
marge  des  vieux  Uvres  (i  905-1 907)  are  like- 
wise among  the  most  charming  works  of  the 
author. 

Revoltee  is  decidedly  a  first  attempt,  crude  and 
full  of  "  influences."  It  seems  as  if  the  first- 
nighter  had  relied  a  little  too  much  on  scattered 
tag-ends  of  Ibsen  and  some  of  the  young  inno- 
vators of  the  Theatre  Libre.  The  play  might 
well  be  called  Impressions  de  theatre.  A  reading 
of  the  piece  leaves  one  with  the  feeling  that  he 
has  seen  it  all  before:  the  stupid  and  uninterest- 
ing Georg  Tesman  —  husband;  the  misunderstood 
wife,  her  struggle  for  freedom,  self-expression. 
There  is  some  hesitancy  in  the  story,  the  plot 
moves  on  the  wheels  of  time-worn  conventions, 
there  is  a  duel  and  a  final  reconciliation  in  which  it 
is  hard  to  believe.  But  the  play  is  noteworthy, 
however,  by  reason  of  some  good  bits  of  character- 
ization; Helene  and  her  professor  husband  Rous- 
seau, are  what  render  Revoltee  worth  reading. 
Lemaitre  was  the  first  to  realize  the  weakness  of 
his  work:  in  his  own  criticism  of  it  he  says: 
*'  You  see,  the  last  act  is  very  mediocre  —  now  I 
have  thought  of  a  much  better  one,  but  it  is  too 

124 


JULES  LEMAITRE 


late."     Instead  of  rewriting  the   play,    he   pro- 
ceeded to  write  another. 

An  incident  serves  to  reveal  Lemaitre's  ideas 
on  playwriting,  ideas  which  were  soon  to  develop 
and  form  the  basis  of  many  of  his  later  plays. 
Sarcey  said  of  the  next  attempt,  Le  Depute  Leveau, 
"  This  is  no  play."  To  which  Lemaitre  replied, 
"  Je  m'en  moque,  si  c'est  de  la  vie."  (Literally, 
"  I  don't  care  a  hang,  so  long  as  it  is  life.")  It 
was  hardly  that,  but  the  answer  was  worthy  of  its 
author. 

Le  Depute  Leveau  is  well  written,  well  con- 
structed, and  much  nearer  "  life  "  than  Revoltee, 
but  it  is  still  far  from  Le  Pardon  and  La  Mas- 
siere.  It  is  a  satire  on  the  parvenu  politician,  and 
is  concerned  with  his  love-affair  and  subsequent  di- 
vorce. Leveau,  after  falling  in  love  with  the 
Marquise  de  Greges,  seeks  to  divorce  his  wife,  but 
is  at  first  met  with  considerable  opposition;  this  is 
later  broken  down  in  a  rather  unconvincing  man- 
ner. The  Marquise's  husband  has  made  friends 
with  Leveau  for  political  reasons,  but  Leveau  is 
not  long  in  learning  that  he  has  served  merely  as 
an  instrument  in  the  Marquis'  hands,  and  is  the 
victim  of  an  intrigue.  The  denouement  is  feeble : 
Leveau  sends  the  Marquis  an  anonymous  letter, 
arranges  that  the  Marquise  and  himself  shall  be 
found  together,  irreparably  compromised,  and 
that  he  (the  Marquis)  will  be  forced  to  divorce 
his  wife.  The  plot  works,  the  divorce  is  obtained, 
and  we  are  led  to  suppose  that  Leveau  ultimately 
becomes  the  husband  of  the  Marquise.  The  story 
is  "  theatrical,"  but  there  are  numerous  bits  of 
characterization  which  partly  redeem  the  play. 

125 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Manage  blanc  is  one  of  the  most  charming  and 
interesting  comedies  of  its  day.  Jacques  de 
Tievre,  a  blase  man  of  the  world,  a  rehc  of  twenty 
years'  dissipation,  comes  to  Mentone  on  the  Ri- 
viera, to  rest.  There  he  meets  a  Mme.  Aubert 
and  her  two  daughters:  Marthe,  and  her  half- 
sister,  Simone,  a  young  girl  in  the  last  stages  of 
consumption.  His  assiduous  visits  are  interpreted 
by  the  mother  and  Marthe  as  a  desire  on  his  part 
to  marry  Marthe,  but  it  is  really  the  invalid  who 
has  attracted  him.  The  idea  of  making  love  to 
a  young  woman  who  has  but  a  few  months  to  live 
appeals  to  his  abnormal  imagination.  He  tells 
Mme.  Aubert  of  his  strange  passion;  she  is  natu- 
rally astonished,  but,  noticing  that  Simone  recipro- 
cates his  love,  and  not  wishing  to  risk  the  shock 
which  a  refusal  of  Jacques  as  a  suitor  would  cause 
to  the  girl,  she  gives  her  consent  to  the  marriage. 
At  first  the  disappointed  and  wounded  Marthe  op- 
poses the  match,  but  as  Simone  is  suddenly  taken 
ill,  she  "  forgives  "  Jacques.  But  she  cannot  for- 
give the  sister,  who,  she  believes,  robbed  her  of 
a  husband,  and,  partly  out  of  spite,  partly  by  in- 
clination, she  gives  Jacques  a  rendezvous.  Simone 
surprises  the  two,  and  falls  dead.^ 

The  interest  of  the  play  lies  in  its  strange  plot, 
and  in  the  characters  of  Marthe  and  Jacques. 
Lemaitre  tells  us,  in  answer  to  one  of  the  numer- 
ous attacks  made  on  the  play:  "  My  mistake  was 
in  believing  that  Jacques  de  Tievre's  idea  was  in 

*  The  original  ending,  according  to  Lemaitre,  was  this: 
Marthe,  knowing  that  any  sort  of  exposure  would  be  certain 
death  to  her  sister,  opens  a  window  in  the  room  where  Simone 
is  lying,  which  results  in  the  consumptive's  death. 

126 


JULES  LEMAITRE 


nowise  out  of  the  ordinary,  that  his  behavior  and 
sentiments  were  easy  to  understand,  quite  accept- 
able as  a  matter  of  course.  And  why  should  I 
not  have  thought  so?  Jacques'  dream  is  one 
which  I  myself  once  had,  some  twelve  or  fifteen 
years  ago,  spontaneously,  in  regard  to  a  young 
girl  I  met  in  a  family  '  pension  '  where  I  took  my 
meals.  Doubtless,  it  was  only  a  dream  .  .  . 
but  in  reality  that  dream  did  not  seem  so  absurd 
or  impossible.  Above  all,  there  appeared  to  be 
nothing  immoral  in  it."  But  Jacques'  attitude 
may  be  condemned  on  the  grounds  of  morality; 
for,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  perhaps  he  loved 
Simone  after  his  marriage,  he  married  her  out  of 
pity  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  because  the  whole  ad- 
venture was  romantic  and  piquant.  Marthe  as  a 
character  is  scarcely  more  than  a  sketch;  but  how 
deft  are  the  touches  which  make  her  live,  how 
deeply  we  feel  her  sense  of  injury  and  loss  I  Will 
Lemaitre  ever  write  a  play  about  Marthe,  expand- 
ing her  field  of  action,  entering  with  greater  detail 
into  her  inmost  thoughts? 

Two  years  after  Manage  hlanc  came  Flipote, 
a  rather  rigid,  "  well-made  "  piece.  The  char- 
acterization is  good,  but  the  story  is  decidedly 
banal.  Two  lovers  "  separate  the  day  they  find 
themselves  rivals  in  public  favor."  Between 
Manage  blanc  and  Les  Rots,  a  comparatively 
weak  piece  of  work  can  easily  be  forgiven. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  title  of  Le- 
maitre's  only  novel  was  Les  Rots.  That  novel  he 
dramatized  in  1893.  The  play  was  a  great  suc- 
cess at  the  Theatre  de  la  Renaissance.  Like  many 
of  the  plays  of  Frangois  de  Curel,  the  austere 

127 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

writer  of  Les  Fossiles,  this  was  based  upon  a  news- 
paper clipping  relating  the  disappearance  of  a 
prince  of  the  House  of  Austria.  Like  Curel,  Le- 
maitre  used  the  incident  merely  as  an  excuse  for  a 
psychological  work  of  deep  import.  The  aged 
King  of  Alfania  has  abdicated  in  favor  of  his  son 
Hermann,  a  young  man  whose  principles  of  de- 
mocracy and  progress  are  in  direct  opposition  to 
his  father's.  As  he  ascends  the  throne,  he  is  con- 
fronted with  the  grave  problem  of  a  popular  up- 
rising, the  object  of  which  is  the  increase  of  the 
rights  and  power  of  the  people.  Once  crowned, 
Hermann,  acting  contrary  to  the  advice  of  his 
wife  Wilhelmina  and  his  ministers,  decides  in 
favor  of  the  people.  Hermann's  revolutionary 
doctrines  are  not  all  his  own,  for  a  woman,  Frida 
de  Thalberg,  his  former  mistress,  had  imbued  him 
with  the  spirit  of  freedom  which  caused  so  great  a 
disturbance  in  the  kingdom.  Awdotia  Latanief, 
a  "  revolutionary  mystic,"  a  friend  of  Frida,  has 
likewise  had  much  to  do  in  the  shaping  of  the 
mind  of  the  young  King.  Meanwhile  the  people, 
having  tasted  of  freedom,  invade  the  palace,  de- 
manding further  rights  and  more  power.  Giving 
way  to  the  entreaties  of  his  wife,  Hermann  orders 
the  General  to  "  do  his  duty  " ;  the  crowd  is  dis- 
persed, some  revolutionaries  are  killed,  and  for 
the  moment  the  revolt  is  put  down.  False  to  his 
own  principles,  Hermann  decides  to  go  to  Frida 
for  consolation;  she  is  stationed  not  far  away,  at 
Loewenberg.  He  leaves,  followed  by  Wilhel- 
mina. At  the  Pavilion  of  Orsova  are  Frida,  the 
King,  and  Awdotia.  The  two  women,  at  first 
alone,  discuss  the  political  situation  and  Awdotia 

128 


JULES  LEMAITRE 


proposes  that  Hermann  be  assassinated  in  order 
that  the  revolution  may  take  its  course  unhindered; 
but  Frida,  fearing  for  the  hfe  of  the  man  she 
loves,  promises  that  if  she  be  left  alone  with  him, 
she  will  induce  him  to  abdicate.  Hermann  and 
Frida  are  then  left  together;  Frida's  passion  for 
the  liberty  of  Alfania  has  now  given  way  to  her 
particular  passion  for  its  king.  "  I  don't  want  to 
be  the  shameful  rival  of  the  Queen  of  Alfania; 
but  if  you  are  truly  unhappy  and  tired  of  your 
role  of  king  and  will  abdicate,  then  I  will  be 
yours!  "  Hermann  is  willing  to  give  up  all  for 
Frida;  but  just. at  this  moment  the  figure  of  Wil- 
helmina  is  seen  in  the  background.  Ignorant  of 
the  danger,  Hermann  takes  Frida  in  his  arms, 
Wilhelmina  enters,  takes  the  revolver  Awdotia  has 
left  on  the  table,  and  aims  at  Frida ;  but  Hermann, 
stepping  between  them,  receives  the  shot  and  dies 
a  moment  later.  Wilhelmina  tells  the  aged  King 
what  she  has  done,  and  he  replies,  making  her  the 
Regent:  "  You  have  done  so  much  to  defend  the 
crown,  that  I  know  of  no  one  in  whose  hands  it 
could  safer  be!  "  This  drama  of  "passion  and 
ideas  "  is  thoroughly  effective,  with  the  exception 
of  the  final  act;  the  psychological  insight  of  the 
author  is  deeper  than  in  any  other  of  his  plays, 
with  the  exception  of  Le  Pardon.  But  the  in- 
terest is  so  often  shifted  that  we  are  left  a  little 
bewildered.  If  Lemaitre  had  concentrated  more 
on  the  characters  of  Hermann,  Frida,  and  Wilhel- 
mina, we  should  doubtless  have  had  a  finer  work. 
That  finer  work  was  to  come  two  years  later. 

With  VAge  difficile  Lemaitre  gave  proof  of  his 
command  over  the  dramatic  medium.     With  per- 

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CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

feet  ease  he  conducts  his  hero,  a  man  of  middle 
age,  through  dangerous  love  affairs,  and  entertains 
us  with  a  series  of  delightful  genre  scenes.  Those 
parts  of  the  play  dealing  with  the  "  Indian  Sum- 
mer "  of  Chambray,  his  meeting  an  old  sweet- 
heart after  many  years  of  separation  from  her, 
are  handled  with  great  dexterity  and  gentle  ten- 
derness. 

Up  to  the  year  1895  Lemaitre  had  made  var- 
ious attempts  with  a  good  measure  of  success  in 
the  dehneation  of  character;  in  Les  Rots  and 
Manage  blanc  he  had  gone  far  into  the  analysis 
of  human  motives;  but  not  until  Le  Pardon  did  all 
his  power  of  presenting  human  beings  and  deal- 
ing with  real  problems  come  to  its  fullest  fruition. 
Les  Rois,  as  we  have  seen,  was  ragged  in  places, 
Manage  blanc  somewhat  abnormal  and  inclined 
to  be  over-sentimental;  Le  Pardon  comes  as  near 
being  a  Slice  of  Life  as  Porto-Riche's  Amoureuse, 
or  any  of  its  numerous  progeny. 

For  commercial,  and  occasionally  for  artistic 
reasons,  several  modern  plays  of  full  length  con- 
tain but  five,  four,  or  three  characters.  The 
charming  comedy.  The  Mollusc,  by  Hubert  Henry 
Davies,  and  Frangois  de  Curel's  La  Danse  devant 
le  miroir  contain  but  four  characters  each.  Le 
Pardon  has  only  three.  A  dramatist  who  is  able 
to  write  a  play  with  so  few  characters  and  make 
that  play  interesting  and  effective  must  be  acknowl- 
edged by  reason  of  that  tour  de  force  an  accom- 
plished man  of  the  theater.  In  the  second  act  of 
The  Thief,  Henry  Bernstein  has  written  a  duo- 
logue, which  for  dramatic  tension  could  hardly  be 
improved  upon;  but  the  intrinsic  interest  of  the 

130 


JULES  LEMAITRE 


situation  itself,  which  had  been  prepared  for  in 
the  foregoing  act  through  the  agency  of  a  number 
of  people,  helped  sustain  the  act.  Lemaitre's 
story  is  simple  and  commonplace :  Suzanne  has 
been  unfaithful  to  Georges  and  wishes  to  become 
reconciled  with  him.  Their  friend  Therese  brings 
about  the  reconciliation,  but  meantime  Georges 
falls  in  love  with  her.  Suzanne  learns  of  this,  and 
is  at  first  not  inclined  to  forgive  her  husband ;  then, 
as  Georges  makes  it  clear  to  her  that  his  "  slip  " 
was  momentary,  accidental,  that  he  will  ever  after 
be  a  model  husband,  Suzanne  gives  in.  Here  is 
no  mystery,  here  are  few  opportunities  for  the 
"  grand  style  1  "  What  could  Bernstein  have  done 
with  this  plot  ? 

In  Le  Pardon  Lemaitre  has  voluntarily  done 
away  with  such  moving  scenes  as  are  ordinarily 
called  "  effective."  In  the  story  he  conceived  he 
might  have  made  room  for  many  of  these,  but  he 
preferred  to  enter  into  a  detailed  analysis  of  the 
three  characters  he  chose  to  treat.  With  a  keen- 
ness and  austerity  closely  akin  to  the  literary  hau- 
teur of  Paul  Hervieu,  he  has  applied  himself  solely 
to  inquiring  into  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  Su- 
zanne, Georges,  and  Therese.  In  brief  he  says: 
Here  is  what  happens  every  day;  it  is  not  pleas- 
ant, it  is  not  edifying,  but  it  is  life.  I  have  at- 
tempted to  use  this  episode  and  tried  to  demon- 
strate the  subtle  workings  of  the  minds  of  these 
three  people.  If  Suzanne  is  unfaithful  to  her  hus- 
band, how  will  her  action  affect  him?  If,  after 
her  husband  has  forgiven  her,  on  certain  condi- 
tions, he  is  unfaithful  to  her,  how  will  she  feel? 
If  each  at  last  is  equally  guilty,  will  that  fact  bal- 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

ance  accounts?  Momentarily,  it  will,  says  Le- 
maitre;  but  he  pessimistically  and  truly  adds  that 
this  unhappy  couple  is  no  more  secure  than  they 
were  when  the  play  opened.  Suzanne  says  as  the 
curtain  falls:  "Oh,  Georges,  God  have  pity  on 
us !  "  This  is  a  step  in  advance  of  the  solutions 
of  the  same  problem  offered  by  Hervieu  and 
Porto-Riche  —  in  Les  Tenailles  and  Amoureuse. 
In  Les  Tenailles  the  unfaithful  wife  is  riveted  to 
her  husband  by  circumstances.  Her  fault  is 
learned  years  after,  when  it  is  too  late  for  her  to 
remarry.  In  Amoureuse,  she  is  brought  closer  to 
her  husband,  because  only  through  her  possible 
loss  is  he  made  fully  aware  of  his  love  for  her. 

Lemaitre  has  twice  in  his  plays  made  use  of 
verse.  Two  slight  but  very  amusing  satirical  com- 
edies mark  his  sole  attempts  in  the  realm  of  the 
purely  fanciful:  La  Bonne  Helene,  a  two-act 
parody  something  in  the  manner  of  Meilhac  and 
Halevy,  and  the  comic  opera,  Le  Mariage  de 
Telemaque,  in  which  Maurice  Donnay  was  his 
collaborator.  With  such  a  combination  it  is  no 
wonder  that  this  delightful  trifle  enjoyed  a  long 
and  successful  run  at  the  Opera  Comique. 

The  years  between  1889  and  1896  were  those 
in  which  Lemaitre's  development  as  a  dramatist 
was  most  rapid;  Revoltee  is  the  weakest  of  the 
plays,  and  Le  Pardon  probably  the  most  close- 
knit,  best  thought-out,  and  best  constructed.  This 
development  of  his  dramatic  sense  practically 
stopped  seven  years  after  its  inception;  for  in  none 
of  the  three  important  plays  which  followed  Le 
Pardon  did  he  add  materially  to  his  skill  as  a 
craftsman,  or  his  ideas.     L'Ainee,  La  Massiere, 

132 


JULES  LEMAITRE 


and  Bertrade,  are  the  products  of  a  man  who  has 
already  said  his  say.  Of  these  three  the  first  is 
the  most  original.  It  is  the  story  of  Pastor 
Petermann,  a  stolid  Swiss,  who  has  six  daughters 
"  to  marry  off."  "  Think  of  it,"  he  says,  "  six 
daughters  to  marry  I  It's  a  problem.  I  must 
show  them  off,  give  garden  parties,  teas,  concerts; 
bring  young  men  to  the  house,  and  hold  them. 
Old  Pastor  Petermann's  home  has  become  a  shrine 
of  Love.  But  I  find  it  all  very  pleasant,  this 
contrast  between  the  sacred  mission  of  the  minister 
of  the  Gospel  and  his  preoccupations  as  father  of 
a  family."  Here  is  a  good  subject  for  comedy, 
a  splendid  opportunity  which  the  dramatist  has 
not  failed  to  grasp.  The  first  two  acts  are  among 
the  best  Lemaitre  ever  wrote;  but  eventually  he 
turns  all  his  attention  to  The  Eldest  Daughter  — 
L'Ainee.  There  is  some  resemblance  to  Marthe's 
situation  in  Manage  blanc,  as  little  Norah  steps 
in  and  appropriates  Mikils,  who  has  asked  for  the 
hand  of  Lia,  the  eldest.  Lia  has  ever  been  the 
drudge  of  the  family;  her  continual  sacrifices  have 
always  been  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course.  Five 
years  pass;  Lia  is  thirty.  As  before,  she  is  the 
drudge,  the  servant  of  her  sisters  and  their  infant 
children.  At  last  a  friend  of  the  family,  Miiller, 
a  man  of  fifty,  asks  her  to  become  his  wife.  She 
does  not  love  him,  but  feels  that  she  must  take  the 
chance.  Just  as  she  accepts  his  offer,  the  seven- 
teen-year-old Dorothee  exercises  her  youthful  cun- 
ning, and  wins  Miiller.  The  parents  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  agree  to  the  match.  In  silence,  Lia  accepts 
defeat,  until  one  day,  at  a  garden  party  given  by 
Dursay,  a  neighbor,  she  is  astonished  on  being 

133 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

asked  to  dance  with  the  host's  nephew.  He  has 
divined  the  innate  charm  of  the  Eldest  and  begins 
to  make  love  to  her  in  true  romantic  style.  Daz- 
zled for  the  moment  by  the  unexpectedness  of  the 
young  man's  declarations,  she  goes  with  him  into 
the  pavilion.  Someone  outside  calls  for  her. 
"  If  you  go  now,"  says  Dursay,  "  you  are  lost." 
Terrified  at  the  prospect,  yet  yielding  to  an  in- 
stinct of  blind  fear  of  further  trouble,  she  opens 
the  door  and  calls,  "  Here  I  am  1  "  Lia  seems 
irreparably  compromised;  but,  strangely  enough, 
Norah  and  Mikils  side  with  her  and  persuade  the 
Petermanns  that  "  Really,  what  irritates  you  is 
not  what  she  has  done  .  .  .  but  the  •  scandal." 
Madame  Petermann  agrees  with  Norah :  "  Don't 
you  see,  it  is  Lia's  very  innocence,  her  simplicity, 
that  have  been  her  undoing?  Is  it  for  us  to  be 
severe  on  her,  us  for  whom  she  has  sacrificed 
everything?  ...  If  Lia  has  sinned  ...  it  is  our 
fault  ...  we  should  take  her  to  our  hearts,  pro- 
tect her,  and  not  allow  her  to  suffer.  That's  what 
I  think!  "  And  the  erring  daughter  is  received 
again  into  the  bosom  of  her  family.  The  repent- 
ant Dursay  makes  an  offer  of  marriage,  which  is  at 
length  accepted. 

The  end  is  a  little  banal,  but  a  comedy  must  end 
in  some  way.  The  author  was  concerned  with 
Lia,  and  we  must  admit  that  she  is  a  well-drawn 
character. 

La  Massiere  is  a  play  of  temperament.  The 
painter  Mareze  is  guilty  of  "  sentimental  infidel- 
ity "  to  his  wife  in  his  relations  with  little  Juliette, 
an  assistant  in  his  studio.  Mme.  Mareze,  who 
suspects  that  her  husband's  interest  in  the  girl  is 

134 


JULES  LEMAITRE 


more  than  platonic,  extracts  a  promise  from  him 
not  to  receive  her  except  in  the  studio,  and  during 
"  business  hours  " ;  but  a  small  crisis  is  brought  on 
as  she  meets  Juliette  one  day  coming  from 
Mareze's  private  studio  in  his  home.  The  affair 
is  simply  one  of  sentiment,  yet  it  assumes  serious 
proportions  in  Madame's  eyes.  Their  son 
Jacques,  however,  provides  a  solution  to  the  prob- 
lem. Meeting  Juliette  one  day  by  chance,  he  falls 
in  love  with  her,  and  tells  his  parents  not  long 
after  of  his  wish  to  make  her  his  wife.  Mareze 
is  deeply  troubled,  and  opposes  the  marriage  from 
selfish  motives;  but  his  wife,  seeing  the  truth  of 
the  matter  —  that  Jacques'  marriage  will  put  an 
end  to  the  other  affair  —  brings  the  two  together 
and  induces  her  husband  to  give  his  consent. 

The  plot  again  is  weak;  it  does  not  progress; 
but  the  idea,  like  that  in  the  perennially  charming 
Ete  de  la  Saint-Martin  of  Meilhac  and  Halevy,  the 
attack  of  "  Indian  Summer  "  which  comes  to  men 
of  middle  age,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
worked  out,  make  it  one  of  Lemaitre's  most  de- 
lightful plays. 

Bertrade  (1905)  is  the  latest  play.^  The 
Marquis  de  Mauferrand,  deep  in  debt,  has  a 
daughter,  Bertrade,  who  can  be  the  means  of  sav- 
ing her  father  and  establishing  him  comfortably 
for  the  remainder  of  his  life,  if  she  will  only  con- 
sent to  become  the  wife  of  a  rich  and  unscrupulous 
banker,  Chaillard.  But  she  refuses,  in  spite  of 
the  imprecations  and  threats  of  the  Marquis. 
There  is  one  last  means :  the  Marquis  can,  by  mar- 

^  La  Princesse  de  Cloves  was  written  about  the  same  time, 
presumably.     It  has  not  been  produced. 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

rying  a  former  mistress,  the  Baroness  de  Rom- 
melsbach,  reestablish  himself  and  pay  all  his 
debts.  Again  Bertrade  steps  in,  convinces  her 
father  of  the  utter  shame  of  the  transaction,  and 
persuades  him  to  refuse.  This  he  does,  but,  as 
there  is  no  solution  left,  he  kills  himself.  This 
is  again  a  rather  meretricious  story,  and  would 
have  little  value  were  it  not  for  the  study  afforded 
in  the  character  of  Bertrade.  The  dramatist's 
mistake  is  in  beginning  his  play  either  too  soon  or 
too  late.  Bertrade  is  too  busy  doing  things  to 
allow  us  to  see  very  much  of  her  personahty. 
She  begins  to  interest  us  just  as  the  curtain  falls, 
and  we  must  rely  on  our  imagination  to  fill  out 
the  sketch.  Had  Lemaitre  begun  his  play  at  this 
point,  we  might  have  had  another  complete,  sym- 
pathetic and  illuminating  picture  to  place  with 
Suzanne,  and  Lia,  and  Frida.  As  it  is,  he  has 
given  us  the  ghost  of  a  play,  a  clever  sketch  with 
a  melodramatic  plot. 

The  very  openness  of  mind  of  Jules  Lemaitre, 
his  freedom  from  prejudice,  his  admirable  integ- 
rity, render  impossible  any  categorical  summing 
up  of  his  philosophy  of  life.  He  is  at  once  skep- 
tic, believer,  poet,  politician.  Republican,  and 
Royalist.  If,  in  the  realm  of  the  drama,  he  has 
failed  to  maintain  so  high  a  standard  as  some  of 
his  contemporaries,  if  in  the  final  analysis  he  can- 
not be  considered  a  playwright  whose  total  out- 
put entitles  him  to  a  place  in  the  front  rank,  he 
has  at  least  contributed  to  the  drama  of  his  gen- 
eration one  play  unsurpassed  of  its  kind. 

Early  in  August,  19 14,  Lemaitre  died. 

136 


ALFRED  CAPUS 

Alfred  Capus  once  said  in  an  address  on 
"  Our  Epoch  and  the  Theater  "  that  the  society  of 
to-day  does  not  readily  lend  itself  to  the  dramatist 
because,  "  to  use  a  metaphor  from  photography, 
it  will  never  sit  still  long  enough  to  be  snapped." 
M.  Capus  was  surely  too  modest,  for  if  there  is 
one  photographer  agile  enough  to  take  snap- 
shots of  contemporary  French  society,  it  is  the 
author  of  La  Veine.  The  infinitely  varied  and 
complex  life  of  the  past  twenty-five  years  has 
found  in  the  plays  of  this  man  its  most  complete 
and  faithful  external  expression  —  the  life  of 
Paris,  that  is.  In  the  works  of  no  other  present- 
day  French  dramatist  have  we  such  broad  and 
detailed  portraits  of  the  boulevardier,  the  bour- 
geois, the  femme  du  monde. 

The  "  smiling  optimism  "  of  this  son  of  Pro- 
vence is  not  immediately  observable  in  the  man's 
personal  appearance.  One  morning,  just  after 
the  premiere  of  his  latest  play,  I  paid  him  a  visit 
in  his  sumptuous  apartment  overlooking  the 
Champ  de  Mars.  Into  the  large  library  came  a 
small,  unwell-looking  man,  with  thin,  carefully 
brushed  hair  and  a  neatly  trimmed  black  beard, 
wearing  a  pink  dressing-gown.  He  excused  him- 
self saying  that  he  was  suffering  from  a  severe  cold, 
and  sat  back  in  a  chair  with  a  weary  sigh.     But 

137 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

the  moment  he  spoke,  I  could  observe  his  essen- 
tial kindliness  and  good-nature,  which  not  even  the 
ravages  of  a  Parisian  autumn  cold  could  impair. 
His  fine  forehead,  deep  and  penetrating  black 
eyes,  the  mobile  lines  about  the  mouth,  bespoke  the 
satirist,  while  the  smooth  and  gentle  voice  gave 
evidence  of  that  optimism  which  is  the  keynote  of 
all  his  work.  And  yet  there  was  something  in  the 
quiet  manner  and  unemphatic  way  of  speaking 
which  might  lead  one  to  assume  that  he  was  any- 
one but  the  author  of  the  bubbling  Deux  Ecoles. 

The  life  of  Alfred  Capus  is  quite  In  accordance 
with  his  appearance;  it  has  been  devoid  of  all  ad- 
venture; full  of  trials,  it  is  true,  but  with  no  vio- 
lent struggles,  no  tragedies.  It  is  like  that  of 
many  of  his  contemporaries :  first  a  long  period  of 
training  for  a  profession  never  to  be  pursued,  an 
apprenticeship  in  the  newspaper  world,  discour- 
agement, and  finally,  success. 

Capus  was  born  at  Aix,  Provence,  in  1858. 
His  primary  education  was  received  at  Toulon; 
at  the  age  of  fourteen  he  went  to  Paris,  where  he 
continued  his  studies.  There  he  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  that  brilliant  city  in  its  prime,  when 
the  boulevards  were  at  the  height  of  their  splen- 
dor. Like  Maurice  Donnay,  the  future  dramatist 
of  the  boulevards  entered  a  school  which  was  to 
prepare  him  to  follow  a  technical  profession,  only 
Capus  planned  to  be  a  mining  engineer.  But  a 
few  years'  half-hearted  study  and  his  failure  to 
receive  the  coveted  certificate,  convinced  him  that 
his  parents  had  been  unwise  In  urging  him  Into  the 

138 


ALFRED  CAPUS 


paths  of  practical  science.  The  attractions  of 
"  La  Ville  lumiere  "  proved  too  much  for  him. 
His  natural  inclinations,  coupled  with  the  driving 
necessity  of  making  a  living,  resulted  in  his  first 
attempt  in  the  field  of  authorship.  In  collabora- 
tion with  L.  Vonoven  he  wrote  Les  Honnetes 
gens,  a  little  collection  of  stories  and  short 
sketches.  The  following  year  the  same  pair  of 
young  authors  produced  a  play  —  Le  Mart  malgre 
lui  —  at  the  Theatre  Cluny.  The  next  three  years 
Capus  spent  in  looking  for  a  permanent  position, 
and  we  may  well  believe  that  the  indigent  young 
man  underwent  many  privations.  Discouraged 
at  length,  he  decided  to  leave  his  native  country 
and  go  to  foreign  lands,  there  to  resume  the  pro- 
fession for  which  he  had  half-prepared  himself  at 
the  technical  school.  But  just  at  the  right  mo- 
ment he  was  lucky  enough  to  come  into  a  small 
sum  of  money  which  "  permitted  him  to  wait  a 
little  longer." 

With  the  assistance  of  his  friends  Paul  Hervleu 
and  Marcel  Prevost,  he  was  given  a  position  on 
Le  Clairon,  a  newspaper.  It  is  curious  to  note 
that  among  his  first  contributions  to  this  organ  was 
one  on  the  death  of  Darwin,  in  1882.  No  one 
else  on  the  staff  had  the  temerity  to  write  the  few 
dozen  requisite  lines.  The  following  year  Capus 
was  offered  a  slightly  better  position  on  Octave 
Mirbeau's  new  review,  Les  Grimaces,  an  offer 
which  the  struggling  journalist  was  not  slow  to 
accept.  At  this  early  date  some  of  those  qual- 
ities of  irony  and  Gallic  wit  began  to  appear  in  his 
"  stories,"  quahties  which  he  was  later  to  develop 

139 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

and  use  to  great  effect  in  his  more  mature  works. 
Le  Gaulois  shortly  after  became  the  scene  of 
his  activities;  here  he  set  himself  consciously 
"  blaguer  les  hommes  et  les  choses,"  for  he  was 
fast  becoming  what  in  his  earlier  years  he  had  as- 
pired to  become :  a  boulevardier.  Capus  had  now 
begun  to  attract  some  attention,  and  in  his  various 
contributions  —  to  L'Echo  de  Paris,  La  Revue 
bleue,  and  U Illustration  for  example  —  little  dia- 
logues, scenes  from  every-day  life,  sketches  of  a 
political  and  satirical  nature,  he  proved  that  he 
had  a  personality  as  well  as  a  very  clever  manner 
of  exploiting  that  personality.  A  lightness  of 
touch  and  compactness  of  phraseology  distin- 
guished the  young  man's  style.  By  the  time  his 
first  play  of  any  note  was  produced  he  was  inde- 
pendent and  fairly  prosperous,  especially  as  he 
entered  the  staff  of  the  Figaro  ^  that  same  year. 
Meantime,  he  had  been  writing  novels  and  stories. 
Qui  Perd  Gagne,  Faux  Depart,  Monsieur  veut 
rire,  and  Annees  d'aventures  give  sufficient  evi- 
dence of  the  assiduity  with  which  the  journalist 
strove  to  enter  the  field  of  letters.  These  novels, 
while  they  were  not  immediately  successful,  were 
for  the  most  part  well  received,  and  still  hold  a 
position  of  honor  among  the  "  best-sellers  "  of  the 
past  two  decades. 

In  1894  Brignol  et  sa  fiUe  was  produced  at  the 
Vaudeville.  The  play  ran  for  only  eight  nights, 
yet  its  revival  seven  years  later  at  the  Odeon 
proved  that  the  first-night  judgment  was  an  incor- 
rect one.     This  slight  but  delightfully  droll  com- 

1  Of  which  he  is  now  co-editor  with  Robert  de  Flers. 
140 


ALFRED  CAPUS 


edy  treats  of  an  honest  thief  who,  by  means  of  his 
overwhelming  "  nerve  "  and  the  willing  coopera- 
tion of  his  attractive  daughter,  borrows  large  sums 
of  money,  embezzles,  lies,  cheats,  with  perfect 
complacency.  With  unswerving  faith  in  the  eter- 
nal fitness  of  things,  he  lives  in  the  belief  that 
"  everything  will  turn  out  all  right  in  the  end." 
And  it  does.  The  opening  scene  gives  us  imme- 
diately the  keynote  to  Brignol's  carefree  character. 

Concierge.  I've  just  seen  the  landlord,  Monsieur. 
He  refuses  to  wait  another  instant.  I  ought  to  say,  too, 
that  he  is  very  angry. 

Brignol.     That  will  all  be  arranged. 

Concierge.  This  is  the  first  time  a  tenant  has  been 
three  terms  behind. 

Brignol.     It's  not  serious. 

Concierge.  Monsieur  will  allow  me  to  recall  the  fact 
that  in  a  day  or  two  — 

Brignol.    What? 

Concierge.  The  bailiff!  You've  already  received  the 
first  notice,  and  that  means  — 

Brignol.  Do  you  imagine  I  don't  understand  all  about 
such  things?  I  know  more  than  the  landlords  do:  I'm 
a  lawyer  — 

Concierge.    I'll  go,  then  — 

Enter  Madame  Brignol. 

Then  you  haven't  anything  special  for  me  to  tell  the  land- 
lord, have  you  ? 

Brignol.     Say  I'll  pay  him  to-morrow. 

Concierge.  To-morrow,  without  fail?  They'll  start 
taking  your  property  — 

Brignol.     They'll  do  nothing  of  the  kind. 

Concierge.  Humble  servant  —  Monsieur  —  Ma- 
dame—     [He  goes  out.] 

141 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Madame  Brignol.  Have  you  seen  all  those  people 
you  had  to  see? 

Brignol.  Never  fear:  I  have  two  or  three  affairs  in 
hand  now  that  are  bound  to  succeed. 

Madame  Brignol.  Remember  how  last  time  you 
were  counting  on  two  or  three  affairs,  and  we  didn't  pay 
then ! 

Brignol.  That  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  case. 
Don't  worry.     We  have  the  money  —  practically.  .  .  . 

The  element  of  luck  is  everywhere  observable 
in  the  plays  of  Capus.  One  play,  La  V e'lne  — 
Luck  —  contains  as  its  essence  the  theme  that  luck 
is  the  very  basis  of  life.  With  confidence,  impu- 
dence, and  something  agreeable  in  one's  make-up 
it  is  possible  to  make  a  way  in  the  world  on 
"  nerve."  But  one  must  be  clever  enough  to  seize 
the  opportunity.  Brignol  is  a  charming  fellow,  a 
sympathetic  crook;  because  he  never  allows  an  op- 
portunity to  slip  by,  and  because  he  has  on  his 
side  that  elusive  entity  called  luck,  things  do  "  turn 
out  all  right  in  the  end." 

He  was  something  of  a  new  creation,  a  novelty 
for  the  theatergoers  of  the  early  'nineties,  al- 
though to  the  American  of  to-day  he  may  perhaps 
appear  a  trifle  pale  before  the  exaggerated  Jimmy 
Valentines  and  rough  diamond  heroes. 

Brignol  was  followed  by  Rosine,  a  comedy  of 
a  more  serious  nature;  it  did  much  to  establish 
its  author  as  a  "  rising  dramatist."  One  critic  of 
high  authority,  Gustave  Geffroy,  affirmed  that 
Rosine  was  a  "  deft  study  of  provincial  manners, 
written  on  broad  lines.  In  this  sense,  it  is  a  true 
piece  of  work,  complete  and  well  thought  out. 

142 


ALFRED  CAPUS 


It  presents  at  the  same  time  a  section  of  human- 
ity and  an  author.  The  treatment  of  that  section 
of  humanity  gives  evidence  of  scrupulous  care,  a 
desire  to  enter  into  the  field  of  actual  experience, 
and  make  us  feel  when  and  how  the  action  begins, 
develops,  and  is  carried  to  a  logical  and  fitting 
close."  Manage  bourgeois,  Petites  folks  and 
Les  Maris  de  Leontine  are  rather  in  the  manner 
of  Brignol  than  of  Rosine;  each  in  turn,  especially 
Les  Maris  de  Leontine,  added  to  the  popularity 
of  the  author.  La  Bourse  ou  la  vie  likewise 
achieved  success,  but  as  yet  Capus  could  scarcely 
be  considered  an  eminent  playwright.  To  estab- 
lish him  firmly  a  great  success  was  necessary;  this 
came  in  1901,  when  La  Veine  was  for  the  first 
time  seen  at  the  Varietes.  Capus  is  still  occasion- 
ally spoken  of  as  "  the  author  of  La  Veine."  In 
this  brilliant  comedy  many  of  his  best  qualities 
as  a  dramatist  and  commentator  on  human  nature 
were  brought  to  their  fullest  development:  adroit- 
ness of  touch  in  the  conducting  of  individual  scenes, 
ability  to  tell  a  moving  and  interesting  story,  power 
to  make  clever  dialogue  serve  as  many  ends  as 
possible.  Here  these  qualities  he  molded  into  a 
charming  and  harmonious  whole.  That  fatalism 
which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  character  of  Brig- 
nol, and  which  runs  through  many  of  Capus'  plays, 
is  the  actual  theme  of  La  Veine.  In  the  words  of 
one  of  the  characters  is  this  theme  condensed: 
"  I  am  not  superstitious,  but  I  believe  that  every 
man  with  a  little  intelligence,  who  is  not  too  much 
of  a  fool  and  is  not  too  timid,  has  in  his  life  his 
hour  of  luck,  when  all  men  seem  to  work  for  him, 
where  the  fruit  actually  comes  within  his  reach, 

143 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

so  that  he  has  but  to  pluck  it.  .  .  .  Little  Char- 
lotte, no  matter  how  patient  we  are,  how  brave,  or 
how  hard  we  work,  we  cannot  force  that  hour. 
...  It  strikes  from  a  tower  we  cannot  see,  and  so 
long  as  it  has  not  sounded  for  us,  all  our  talents, 
all  our  virtues,  count  for  nothing."  And  the  play 
is  simply  an  illustration  of  this  philosophy. 
Breard  and  Charlotte  are  carried  along  high  on 
the  wave  of  luck  which  they  have  been  wise 
enough  to  see  and  use  to  their  advantage. 

La  Petite  Fonctionnaire,  another  of  Capus' 
most  brilliant  successes,  is  at  the  same  time  one  of 
his  most  typical  works.  Although  it  is  perhaps 
not  so  well  sustained  throughout  as  the  play  which 
preceded  it,  it  contains  a  number  of  pictures  of 
provincial  life  which  are  quite  as  amusing.  An 
attractive  young  girl,  Suzanne  Borel,  forced  to 
make  her  own  living,  fills  a  position  in  the  post- 
office  of  a  small  provincial  town.  As  she  is  good- 
looking,  and  somewhat  "  accomplished,"  she  is 
looked  upon  by  the  conventional  inhabitants  as  a 
dangerous  citizen,  especially  as  some  of  the  hus- 
bands take  rather  too  much  interest  in  her  wel- 
fare. First  a  wealthy  man  of  the  town  offers  to 
support  her  in  Paris ;  she  accepts  the  offer,  and  al- 
lows her  benefactor  merely  "  to  touch  the  tips  of 
her  fingers."  Then  comes  the  Viscount,  who  is 
unhappily  married;  Suzanne  accepts  the  favors  of 
the  young  nobleman,  who  divorces  his  wife  and 
finally  marries  his  mistress.  The  plot  is  nearly 
as  artificial  and  impossible  as  any  Charles  Klein 
ever  conceived,  but  there  is  a  fund  of  observation 

144 


ALFRED  CAPUS 


and  a  consummately  well  executed  picture  of  peas- 
ants and  petty  railroad  officials,  set  pleasantly 
within  the  frame  of  a  country  post-office.  The 
charm  of  the  comedy  lies  in  particular  scenes,  of 
which  the  following  is  an  example  (Suzanne  is 
questioning  the  postman  as  to  the  effect  she  is  pro- 
ducing on  the  worthy  citizens)  : 

Suzanne.     I  hope  this  reform  has  pleased  the  people? 

Postman.     Oh,  some  like  it,  some  don't. 

Suzanne.     What?     Don't  some  like  it? 

Postman.  Some  people  never  do  seem  satisfied. 
They  ask  for  reforms,  and  when  they  get  'em,  they  say 
it  upsets  their  way  of  doin'  things.  Now,  for  instance, 
they  used  to  get  their  papers  from  Paris  the  mornin'  after, 
and  have  'em  to  read  at  breakfast;  now  they  have  'em  at 
six  in  the  evenin' — 

Suzanne.     To  read  at  dinner! 

Postman.  Yes,  but  you  see,  they're  not  used  to  that 
—  don't  like  it.  There're  some  gentlemen  don't  want 
their  news  too  soon. 

Suzanne.  Tell  me,  the  people  here  don't  think  much 
of  me,  do  they? 

Postman.  Oh,  yes  —  oh,  yes  —  they  do  you  justice, 
Mademoiselle.     They  think  you're  very  nice,  only  — 

Suzanne.  What  do  they  object  to?  I'd  so  like  to 
know. 

Postman.  Well,  they  think  it's  a  little  queer  that  a 
lady  in  the  post-office  plays  the  piano.  ...  Ye  know,  Ma- 
dame Broquet  didn't  have  a  piano,  and  they  wonder  why 
you  have  one — ? 

Suzanne.  But  Madame  Broquet  was  deaf;  they 
don't  want  me  to  be  deaf,  do  they? 

Postman.     Then  —  well  —  the  portraits  — 

Suzanne.     What  portraits? 

Postman.    Those  Mademoiselle  draws. 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Suzanne.  The  idea!  .  .  .  Last  Sunday  I  went  to 
sketch  the  bridge  —  there  were  twenty  children  around 
me. 

Postman.  They  told  about  it —  You  see,  then? 
Piano,  drawing,  that's  all  a  bit  — !  Well,  I'll  be  going 
now. 

Antoine  Benoist  (m  Le  Theatre  d!au']ourd'hui) 
happily  compares  this  humorously  realistic  dia- 
logue with  that  of  Brieux,  the  Brieux  of  Blan- 
chette,  but  he  takes  Capus  to  task  for  not  attack- 
ing the  question  of  how  is  a  young  girl,  left  to  her 
own  resources,  to  make  an  honest  living?  Per- 
haps that  is  too  much  to  ask  of  a  dramatist  whose 
purpose  it  has  always  been  to  amuse,  and  who  has 
succeeded  so  well.  The  question  just  touched 
upon  by  Capus  in  La  Petite  Fonctionnaire  was 
dealt  with  much  better  by  Brieux  in  La  Femme 
seule,  some  eleven  years  later. 

Divorce  has  always  been  an  attractive  and  ex- 
ceedingly fruitful  subject  for  dramatists.  In 
France  it  has  offered  occasion  for  some  of  the 
brightest  comedies,  like  Divorgons!  as  well  as  half 
a  dozen  thesis  plays  of  serious  import  and  occa- 
sionally one  of  tragic  depth.  Capus'  Les  Deux 
Ecoles  gives  us  a  comic  picture  of  divorce,  the 
basis  of  which  is  not  far  different  from  a  number 
of  thesis  plays  by  Hervieu  and  Brieux.  Only 
Capus'  object  is  amusement  pure  and  simple;  he 
preaches  no  sermon,  he  proves  no  thesis.  The 
brilliant  scenes  in  the  cafe,  the  clever  characteriza- 
tion, the  quick  and  compact  story,  render  this  play 
one  of  Capus'  best  achievements. 

The  inconsequence,  the  fun,  the  biting  yet  some- 
146 


ALFRED  CAPUS 


how  good-natured  satire,  are  the  chief  charm 
of  this  dramatist's  work.  Had  he  only  adhered 
to  this  style  of  play,  had  he  not  deemed  it  wise  to 
become  ambitious  and  go  far  afield  where  he  was 
out  of  his  element,  he  would  have  spared  himself 
some  failures  and  at  least  a  temporary  loss  of 
popularity.  It  is  not  hard  to  imagine  a  Capus 
hero  saying  something  like  this:  "Ambition  is 
the  most  fruitless  of  man's  attributes.  Why 
should  I  be  troubled  with  this  hideous  feeling?  If 
I  can  cultivate  the  art  of  charming,  and  make  my 
living  without  working  for  it,  why  on  earth  should 
I  do  more?  " 

In  the  small  group  of  serious  plays,  Capus  seems 
rarely  himself;  Notre  Jeunesse,  Les  Deux  Hom- 
mes,  L'Oiseau  blesse,  L' Attentat,  L'Adversaire, 
L'Aventurier,  and  Helene  Ardouin  are,  in  spite  of 
many  admirable  scenes,  not  in  the  best  manner  of 
their  author.  La  Chatelaine,  a  sentimental  com- 
edy in  which  the  reformation  of  a  hardened  roue 
is  literally  forced  down  our  throats,  seems  to  be 
the  work  either  of  a  young  author  or  the  sign  of 
repentance  of  an  old  hand.  It  properly  belongs 
with  the  "  nice  "  plays  of  Flers  and  Caillavet  and 
Maurice  Donnay.  But  among  these  serious  plays 
are  two  which  merit  special  attention:  U Atten- 
tat and  UAventurier.  The  first  of  these  is  valu- 
able for  a  number  of  deft  character  touches,  the 
second  because  it  is  Capus'  most  successful  attempt 
in  a  realm  where  he  has  scarcely  ever  been  at  his 
ease.  The  Frenchman  is  in  his  element  when  he 
can  depict  with  wit  and  satire  the  intimate  life  of 
his   Paris;   Capus   is   in  this   regard  the   typical 

147 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Frenchman,  but  in  L' Aventur'ter  he  wished  to  por- 
tray the  adventurer-type,  which  has  much  in  com- 
mon with  the  English  and  American  captain  of  in- 
dustry. In  a  Somerset  Maugham  or  a  Henry 
Arthur  Jones  play,  there  often  appears  a  character 
who  has  "  made  good  "  in  Africa  or  our  own  Wild 
West,  and  who  returns  to  the  "  decadent "  society 
whence  he  fled,  "  years  before."  The  dramatist's 
purpose  is  usually  to  contrast  the  rugged  strength 
of  the  adventurer  with  the  effete  representatives 
of  our  social  life  of  the  day.  The  French  audi- 
ence evidently  likes  to  see  these  contrasts,  for  in 
the  realm  of  their  drama  at  least,  the  contrast  is 
the  more  striking,  as  their  society  (again  in  the 
realm  of  their  drama)  is  so  artificial,  so  vastly 
different  from  that  of  the  adventurer.  When, 
therefore,  a  dramatist  like  Bernstein  or  Capus  or 
Brieux  introduces  a  discoverer,  a  captain  of  in- 
dustry, the  French  audience  is  inclined  to  look 
upon  the  character  as  something  of  a  prodigy. 
For  this  reason,  then,  this  play  of  Alfred  Capus 
attained  a  fair  success;  also,  because  Lucien  Guitry 
acted  the  part  of  the  adventurer.  The  play,  while 
it  is  not  typical  of  Capus'  total  output,  is  typical 
at  least  of  one  side  of  his  talent.  In  this  piece 
we  may  study  his  technical  methods,  if  not  his 
mordant  wit  and  irony,  and  observe  his  powers  of 
telling  an  interesting  story,  if  not  enjoy  a  picture 
of  contemporaneous  manners. 

When  an  author  has  been  on  the  wrong  track 
for  some  time,  when  critics  and  public  allow  him 
to  see  that  he  has  ceased  to  be  his  old  self,  he 
sometimes  returns  to  the  old  manner.     If  he  be, 

148 


ALFRED  CAPUS 


like  Capus,  a  skillful  dramatist  who  knows  what 
the  public  wants,  one  who  has  been  a  public  favor- 
ite, who  has  always  known  how  to  attract  and  hold 
his  audiences,  he  will  almost  certainly  make  up 
for  lost  time.  This  fertile  dramatist,  during  the 
years  while  he  was  attempting  to  enter  regions 
which  were  not  for  him,  tried  from  time  to  time 
to  redeem  himself,  as  it  were.  In  Monsieur 
Piegois  and  Un  Ange,  the  tone  is  not  too  serious, 
yet  in  spite  of  a  few  scenes  reminiscent  in  spirit 
of  ha  Veine  and  Brignol  et  sa  fille,  these  plays 
are  not  of  great  importance. 

But  in  the  Fall  of  19 13,  Capus  returned  to  his 
brightest  manner  in  VInstitut  de  Beaute.  This  is 
scarcely  more  than  a  sketch,  in  which  the  old 
Capus  characters  —  the  bourgeois  who  writes 
poems,  his  wife  who  runs  a  beauty  shop,  the  inevi- 
table duchess  and  the  unlosable  lover  —  run 
through  the  old  Capus  situations.  The  best  scene 
in  the  play  is  the  second  act,  in  the  beauty  shop. 
This  is  a  genre  picture,  something  in  the  manner 
of  the  first  act  of  Pinero's  The  Gay  Lord  Quex 
and  the  same  author's  Mind-the-Paint  Girl. 

Yet  Capus  seems  to  have  lost  something  of  the 
old  verve.  Perhaps  he  has  paid  the  penalty  for 
writing  his  best  play  too  early  in  his  career:  his 
"  veine  "  has  possibly  left  him,  for  he  has  just 
been  consecrated  as  one  of  the  Immortals.  His 
election  to  the  Academic  Frangaise  in  the  spring 
of  19 14  seemed  like  a  reward  for  the  polished  and 
finely  written  Institut  de  Beaute;  the  freshness  and 
youthful  buoyancy  of  the  early  works  were  not 

149 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

sufficient  grounds  for  the  granting  of  immortal- 
ity. 

In  forming  any  critical  judgment  of  Capus' 
work,  we  should  of  course  take  into  account  only 
the  seven  or  eight  really  significant  plays;  if  we 
think  of  the  author  of  La  Veine,  Brignol  et  sa 
fille,  La  Petite  Fonctionnaire,  Les  Deux  Ecoles, 
Rosine,  Les  Maris  de  Leontine,  then  the  words  of 
Jules  Lemaitre  are  unquestionably  applicable: 
"  M.  Alfred  Capus  is  an  original,  'pacific,'  sure 
writer.  In  a  word,  he  is  a  realist,  and  a  true  one 
—  a  rare  thing  nowadays.  For  his  realism  is  not 
tangled  up  with  Naturalism,  nor  pessimism,  nor 
artistic  '  writing,'  nor  ready-made  '  Parisianism,' 
nor  is  he  concerned  with  a  mania  for  psychological 
analysis,  nor  the  desire  to  shock  and  astonish  us: 
he  is  quite  unpretentious.  He  sees  clearly,  and 
tells  us  plainly  what  he  sees;  that  is  all.  A 
natural  and  quiet  teller  of  stories,  exact,  scarcely 
ironical.  I  have  before  said  that  by  reason  of  his 
tranquillity  and  his  clarity  he  reminded  me  of 
Alain  Le  Sage.  I  shall  not  retract  what  I  have 
said.  Yes,  the  more  I  think  of  it,  the  more  in- 
clined I  am  to  the  belief  that  his  originality  lies 
in  the  fact  that  he  is  a  realist  in  the  classic  man- 
ner: a  realist  pure  and  simple,  not  brutal,  not 
evangelical,  not  bitter,  not  moral,  nor  even  im- 
moral. But  just  because  he  sees  life  itself  and 
goes  almost  always  to  the  average  reality  (the 
average  is  not  brilliant,  no!  but  it  is  infinite) 
the  work  of  M.  Capus  appears  vastly  more 
significant  than  the  great  mass  of  Parisian  goods 
and  psychological  studies  of  greater  renown." 

150 


HENRY  BATAILLE 

The  Midi  —  that  sunny  Midi  which  gave  to 
France  Alphonse  Daudet,  Frederic  Mistral,  and 
Jean  Aicard  —  was  the  birthplace  of  the  sensitive 
and  highly  impressionable  poet,  Henry  Bataille. 
In  the  same  ancient  city  in  which  the  author  of 
Tartarin  first  saw  the  light,  Nimes,  was  born  in 
1872  the  author  of  La  Femme  nue.  Although 
the  removal  of  his  family  in  1876  to  Paris  took 
the  child  out  of  his  native  haunts,  he  has  since  so 
often  revisited  them  that  he  may  be  rightly  con- 
sidered a  child  of  the  South.  The  child's  early 
and  lasting  impressions  received  from  nature,  his 
almost  morbid  preoccupation  with  himself  and  his 
thoughts,  the  deep  sorrow  caused  by  early  be- 
reavements, find  expression  in  his  first  published 
work,  La  Chambre  blanche,  which  made  its  ap- 
pearance in  1895.  It  is  a  slight  volume  of  in- 
tensely subjective  poems.  These  verses,  youthful 
and  crude  in  places,  naive  and  sincere  always,  at- 
tracted some  attention,  for  they  constituted  a  little 
revolt  against  the  Neo-classicists  who  held  sway 
at  the  time.  The  following  lines,  evocative  of 
that  spirit  in  nature  which  was  so  dear  to  a  poet  like 
Wordsworth,  show  something  of  the  poet's  deli- 
cacy of  feeling. 

Voyageur,  voyageur  de  jadis  qui  t'en  vas 

A  I'heure  oil  les  bergers  descendent  des  montagnes, 

151 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Hate-toi!  les  foyers  sont  eteints  ou  tu  vas, 
Closes  les  portes  au  pays  que  tu  regagnes; 
La  grande  route  est  vide  et  le  bruit  des  luzernes 
Vient  de  si  loin  qu'il  ferait  peur  .  .  .  depeche-toi. 

Bataille  was  educated  at  Paris  and  Versailles, 
but  those  frequent  sojourns  in  the  South  kept  him, 
as  I  have  suggested,  a  true  son  of  his  native 
Midi.  In  1890  he  determined  to  become  a 
painter  and  entered  accordingly  the  Academic 
Julian,  where  his  aptitude  marked  him  out  as  the 
probable  winner  of  the  coveted  Prix  de  Rome. 

But  an  accident  prevented  his  obtaining  the 
prize,  for  in  1894  his  first  play.  La  Belle  au  bois 
dormant,  was  produced  by  Lugne-Poe  at  his 
Theatre  de  I'Oeuvre.  This  fairy  play  was  writ- 
ten in  collaboration  with  Robert  d'Humieres. 
Perhaps  the  most  valuable  lesson  for  Bataille  in 
this  production  was  received  as  a  result  of  his 
preoccupation  with  the  mounting;  it  made  him 
familiar  with  the  practical  side  of  producing. 
Had  he  continued  to  spend  so  much  time  and  en- 
ergy on  this  side  of  the  profession,  bringing  to  it 
his  painter's  sense  of  proportion  and  appropriate- 
ness, France  might  have  had  one  dramatist  less 
to-day  but,  what  is  more  needed,  an  intelligent  and 
progressive  producer.  That  opposition  in  France 
to  much  that  is  new  in  the  theater,  that  obstinate 
refusal  to  learn  that  the  stage  is  not  still  an  eight- 
eenth century  institution,  had  rarely  been  so  mani- 
fest as  at  the  first  production  of  La  Belle  du  bois 
dormant.  It  was  hissed  by  the  audience  and 
damned  by  the  press.  The  author,  it  was  pre- 
dicted, would  never  write  anything  else.     To-day 

152 


HENRY  BATAILLE 


the  author  is  one  of  France's  acknowledged  gods 
of  the  playhouse,  to  whom  the  press  and  the  public 
are  especially  and  at  times  blindly  cordial. 

This  early  discouragement  nearly  turned  Ba- 
taille  into  other  fields,  when  encouragement  of 
the  finest  kind  came  from  Marcel  Schwob,  poet, 
critic,  and  correspondent  of  Stevenson's.  Schwob, 
who  had  heard  Bataille  read  some  of  his  child- 
hood verses,  urged  him  to  publish  them.  This 
the  young  poet  did;  the  result  was  La  Chamhre 
blanche.  "  This  little  white  book,"  wrote  Schwob 
in  his  preface,  "  stammering,  trembling  with  ap- 
prehension, with  its  little  maids  painted  like  pic- 
tures in  a  picture-book,  with  its  prim  and  mannered 
words,  its  phrases  delicately  enameled  as  by  the 
hand  of  some  old  nurse,  its  poems  laid  out  in  fresh 
beds,  half  sleeping,  dreaming  of  sweets,  of  prin- 
cesses, of  golden  tresses  and  honey  cakes  .  .  ." 
he  was  proud  and  happy  to  introduce  to  the  read- 
ing public. 

Yet  Schwob's  encouragement  did  not  lead 
Bataille  to  return  at  once  to  the  theater,  though 
it  did  much  to  soothe  the  feelings  of  the  young 
poet.  It  was  chance  once  more  that  directed  him 
toward  the  footlights.  For  some  time  he  held  in 
reserve  the  completed  manuscripts  of  two  verse 
tragedies  on  legendary  themes.  Ton  Sang  and  La 
Lepreuse.  These  he  was  persuaded  to  present  in 
1896  for  the  benefit  performance  of  an  aged  ac- 
tress, but  so  great  was  the  success  of  the  produc- 
tion that  he  at  length  decided  to  write  plays  in 
earnest. 

Four  years  later  his  first  prose  play  on  a  mod- 
ern  theme   appeared.     It  was   U Enchant ement. 

153 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

The  moderate  success  which  it  achieved  and  the 
quantity  of  discussion  it  aroused,  placed  Bataille 
^s  among  the  "  promising."  Le  Masque  followed 
two  years  later,  and  in  1905  Resurrection,  after 
Tolstoy's  novel  of  that  name;  then  his  greatest 
successes,  La  Marche  nuptiale,  Poliche,  and  La 
Femme  nue.  Productions  of  La  Femme  nue,  La 
Vierge  folle,  and  Le  Scandale,  in  England  and 
America,  have  gone  far  to  establish  Bataille's  in- 
ternational fame. 

Bataille  has  been  compared  by  his  biographers 
and  critics  with  Racine  and  Porto-Riche.  The 
analogy  in  either  case  is  clear,  but  not  particularly 
apt:  all  three  are  analysts  of  love  and  its  effect 
on  the  characters  of  strong  women.  But  Racine 
by  reason  of  his  style  and  form,  is  so  far  from 
modern  times  that  he  can  scarcely  be  compared 
with  the  moderns.  Porto-Riche,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  certainly  a  sensitive  soul  and  an  amorist, 
but  Porto-Riche  is  a  trifle  too  much  concerned  with 
the  purely  sexual  side  of  his  subject:  he  tends  to  be 
cloying.  He  is  at  times  a  satirist,  a  gentle  satirist 
like  Donnay.  Bataille  is  rarely  if  ever  satirical. 
He  has  Donnay's  sentimental  vein,  something  of 
Porto-Riche's  power  of  analysis,  and  something 
besides  of  the  psychologic  insight  of  Racine. 

Because  of  his  strong  inbred  sense  of  the 
theater  he  resembles  Bernstein.  It  is  safe  to  pre- 
dict of  a  new  play  announced  by  either  author, 
that  It  will  contain  at  least  one  tense  emotional 
scene.  But  Bataille's  unquestioned  superiority 
over  Bernstein  rests  in  this  fact:  that  whereas  Le 
Voleur  and  Israel  and  Le  Secret  appear  to  be  the 
contrivances  of  a  writer  striving  for  effect,  the 

154 


HENRY  BATAILLE 


"  big  "  situations  in  La  Marche  nuptiale  and  La 
Femme  niie  and  Poliche  seem  to  grow  of  them- 
selves. We  cannot  help  thinking  of  the  first  act 
of  Le  Voleur  —  the  adaptation  entitled  The  Thief 
is  well  known  in  the  United  States  —  as  so  much 
preparation  for  that  superb  second  act,  but  the 
third  act  of  La  Femme  nue  is  the  logical  and  al- 
most unperceived  outgrowth  of  the  second,  the 
second  of  the  first.  Baldly  stated,  Bataille  works 
from  the  inside  out,  Bernstein  in  the  reverse  order. 
The  result  is  that  Bernstein's  method  almost  in- 
variably succeeds  —  it  is  largely  a  matter  of  math- 
ematics —  while  Bataille's  sometimes  misses  the 
point.  One  example  will  suffice:  Le  Secret  —  by 
Bernstein  —  and  Le  Phalene  —  by  Bataille  — 
are  neither  of  them  sound  plays  logically.  Each 
is  written  upon  the  assumption  of  a  false  hypoth- 
esis. The  heroine  of  the  first  is  supposed  to  be 
driven  by  an  abnormal  hatred  to  commit  a  crime 
against  her  friend's  husband;  the  heroine  of  the 
latter  to  commit  a  crime  against  herself:  in  a  mo- 
ment of  despondency  she  gives  herself  to  the  first 
man  she  meets.  The  Bernstein  play  enjoyed  a 
fairly  successful  run  in  Paris,  while  Le  Phalene 
filled  scarcely  fifty  houses.  Bernstein  used  all  his 
theatric  skill  in  order  to  construct  —  the  term  is 
peculiarly  applicable  —  a  big  scene  in  the  second 
act,  but  as  the  preparatory  material  was  gleaned 
from  a  false  hypothesis,  the  scaffolding  was  un- 
sound. The  scene  did  not  ring  true,  yet  so  great 
was  the  sheer  interest,  and  so  great  the  art  of 
Madame  Simone,  that  the  audience  threw  logic 
to  the  winds.  Through  pure  genius  Bernstein 
bolstered  up  a  weak  play.     But  Bataille,  with  a 

155 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

play  founded  upon  an  equally  false  hypothesis, 
failed  when  he  came  to  his  big  scene,  because  that 
scene  fell  intrinsically  short  of  Bernstein's.  Ba- 
taille  failed  because  he  was  too  much  of  an  artist 
and  too  little  a  man  of  the  theater.  He  simply 
could  not  create  out  of  bad  material.  Bataille 
made  a  mistake,  and  failed  honorably;  Bernstein 
made  one,  and  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to 
patch  it. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  enter  upon  the  details 
of  all  of  Bataille's  plays;  there  is  a  certain  simi- 
larity throughout.  L* Enchant ement  is  the  story 
of  a  young  woman  who  suddenly  becomes  aware  of 
the  immense  power  of  love  within  her,  and 
triumphs  over  adverse  circumstances;  Maman 
Colibri,  an  "  unpleasant  "  play  recounting  the  story 
of  a  woman  who  falls  in  love  with  one  of  her 
son's  friends.  It  is,  in  the  author's  own  words, 
a  "  study  of  the  functions  of  woman  throughout 
life."  Le  Masque  is  a  love-story;  the  scene  of 
which  is  laid  in  the  theatrical  world;  U Enfant  de 
I' amour,  Les  Flambeaux,  and  Le  Phalene  are  again 
love  stories  of  some  power;  La  Vierge  folle  is  con- 
cerned with  the  abnormal  adventure  of  an  over- 
sexed young  girl  who  eventually  becomes  crazed 
and  commits  suicide.  But  the  best  and  most  inter- 
esting and  characteristic  plays  are  La  Femme  nue, 
La  Mache  nuptiale,  and  Poliche.  In  these  works 
the  charm  and  poetry,  and  not  too  much  of  the 
purely  theatrical  side,  of  Bataille's  genius  will 
assure  them  recognition  for  years  to  come. 

La  Femme  nue  —  literally  The  Nude  Woman, 
—  is  one  of  the  most  deeply  satisfying  of  all  mod- 
ern French  plays.     It  is  the  simple  story  of  a 

156 


HENRY  BATAILLE 


young  model  who  remains  adorably  feminine  and 
natural  while  her  husband,  spoiled  by  his  success, 
fails  to  appreciate  her,  and  turns  to  another  woman 
for  consolation.  Lolette  comes  to  plead  with  her 
husband  and  the  Princess  who  has  taken  her  place 
in  the  affections  of  Pierre.  The  Princess  sees  that 
the  situation  is  a  critical  one  for  the  poor  wife,  and 
turns  to  Pierre : 

Princess.     One  of  us  must  say  adieu  to  you  forever. 

Lolette.  Yes,  but  it  can't  be  me.  You  haven't  the 
right  to  leave  me.  What  is  to  become  of  me,  think! 
Take  a  lover?  You  have  taught  me  to  be  constant,  and 
now  I  couldn't  love  any  one  but  you  —  make  a  living  by 
going  from  one  man  to  another?  .  .  .  No,  thanks!  I 
haven't  the  strength,  or  the  courage.  Run  about  the 
streets  as  I  used  to  do?  If  you'd  left  me  there,  I  might 
have  done  that  —  now  I  cannot.  It's  your  fault :  you've 
given  me  a  conscience.  What  can  I  do,  my  God?  .  .  . 
I've  become  at  last  the  kind  of  woman  you  wanted  me  to 
be,  and  now  I  can't  be  the  other  kind. —  It's  all  over! 
You  have  a  duty  to  do:  keep  me.     You  will  keep  me  — ! 

Pierre.  Now,  now,  talk  to  me  about  love  if  you  like, 
but  not  duty!  ...  I  have  made  you,  helped  you  rise  in 
the  world.  I  leave  you  on  a  higher  level  than  when  I 
found  you.  Life  is  richer  in  resources  than  you  imagine. 
You  can  build  up  again  your  social  position,  find  —  as 
every  one  can  —  some  one  else  to  love,  some  one  better 
than  I.     You  will  be  happier,  much  happier. 

Lolette.  [With  a  penetrating  cry.]  Oh!  You've 
condemned  me,  I  feel  it  now!  You've  made  your  choice. 
Go  and  be  happy  with  her,  I  know  your  heart  now! 
Loulou's  love  is  dead!  Little  Loulou!  Your  simple  lit- 
tle Loulou!  I've  had  you  as  she  won't  have  you:  I've 
had  your  youth,  your  misery  and  your  poverty!  We've 
gone  through  all  that  together.  Those  were  the  times  — ! 
When  your  trousers  were  ragged,  when  you  didn't  have 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

four  shirts  to  your  name —  ...  I  was  the  woman  you 
needed  then!  I've  given  you  all  my  best  years  —  I  should 
have  given  you  my  whole  life  —  Oh,  Pierre,  what  have 
I  done  to  you?     [She  bursts  into  loud  sobs.} 

Pierre.  My  dear  little  girl,  if  you  knew  how  you  are 
torturing  me! 

LoLETTE.  [Clinging  to  his  arm.]  But  it's  not  possi- 
ble! You  see?  He  has  pity  on  me!  You're  not  going 
to  take  him  from  me  —  you're  not  going  to  take  him  from 
me!  You  can't  know  what  you're  doing!  .  .  .  Oh,  if  I 
could  only  love  him,  caress  him !  Or  be  near  him !  Call 
him  Pierrot!  The  sweetest  name  in  the  world!  When 
I  go  home  now,  to-night,  I  couldn't  bear  the  idea  —  that 

—  that  you  won't  answer  my  call. —  Don't  do  it !  Don't 
do  it!  Pity  me,  here  I  am  on  my  knees  [To  the  Prin- 
cess] Madame,  I'm  not  crying  now,  I'm  not  threaten- 
ing—  I'm  begging  you:  have  pity  on  me!  I  can't  live 
without  him.  .  .  .  Do  what  you  want  with  me!  Come, 
come  with  me,  Pierre!  Dearest,  sweetest,  don't  you  love 
me?  Only  —  a  little?  Come,  let's  go  home!  [She  is 
on  her  knees;  her  head  is  bowed,  her  voice  broken.  She 
is  a  human  rag.     Pierre  tries  to  raise  her,  but  she  resists.} 

Princess.     I  have  no  wish  to  cause  such  unhappiness 

—  Monsieur  Bernier,  you  are  free  — 

Lolette.  See,  Pierre,  she  says  it  herself!  It  was  a 
horrible  dream!  Come,  come,  it's  all  over  now:  let's  go 
home.  [She  grasps  his  arm  and  drags  him  with  her. 
The  Princess  gets  his  hat  and  is  about  to  give  it  to  him. 
Pierre  makes  a  little  negative  gesture  to  the  Princess, 
which  does  not  escape  Lolette.  She  then  rises  and  ad- 
dresses the  pair.}  Ah,  I  saw  you!  You  made  her  a  sign 
to  keep  still!  I  was  on  my  knees.  .  .  .  You're  deter- 
mined, both  of  you.  ...  I  saw  it,  I  saw  it!  Oh,  I  hate 
you,  I  hate  you!  You'll  see,  you'll  see.  You,  Princess, 
are  no  better  than  a  dirty  streetwalker,  and  you — ! 

Pierre.    Now,  Loulou  — 

Lolette.     I'll   say  what   I   want   to   say!     I'm  not 

158 


HENRY  BATAILLE 


afraid  of  you!  I'll  resist.  I'll  resist. —  [^Suddenly  she 
stops  short.  For  a  few  seconds  she  is  silent,  then  with  a 
little  gesture  expressing  the  greatest  despair.^  No,  now 
I  understand  —  it's  all  over.  If  I  suffered  and  tried  every 
imaginable  plan,  I  could  only  fail  in  the  end.  You'll  do 
as  you  like.  .  .  .  It's  all  over  with  me.  Now  what  do 
you  want  of  me?  To  make  you  free?  So  that  you  can 
live  happily?     All  right.     Have  you  any  ink? 

Pierre.  Now  what  are  you  going  to  do?  \^She  goes 
to  the  table. ^ 

LoLETTE.  Wait  a  moment —  \_She  writes,  speaking 
aloud  to  her  self. '\  "  Monsieur,  I  hereby  file  petition  for 
divorce  .  .  .  against  my  husband,  Monsieur  Bernier. 
Please  consider  this  application  as  definite."  [Pierre 
and  the  Princess  look  fixedly  at  each  other.  It  seems 
that  each  is  looking  for  strength  from  the  other,  while 
Lolette,  head  bowed,  eyes  dry  and  clear,  her  face  the 
picture  of  agony,  is  writing.  Then  Pierre  takes  a  step 
in  her  direction,  but  Lolette  motions  him  away,  without 
looking  at  him.]  Sh!  —  Now  the  address  —  just  mail 
that —  [She  rises,  not  looking  at  Pierre  or  the  Prin- 
cess.] It's  all  over  then,  Pierre.  That's  what  you 
wanted  —     There ! 

Pierre.     [Taking  up  his  hat  and  cane.]     Now,  come! 

Lolette.  [As  Pierre  is  about  to  follow  her,  she  mo-^ 
tions  him  out  of  her  way  with  a  sweeping  gesture.]  Now 
/  order  you  not  to  follow  me!  It's  all  over  —  you  have 
what  you  wanted !  —  No,  no,  I  don't  want  to  hear  you 
behind  me !     Nothing  more !     Nothing  more !     It's  over ! 

Pierre.     Where  are  you  going? 

Lolette.  [Not  turning  around.]  Oh,  what  differ- 
ence does  that  make  to  you  —  now  ?  [She  goes  out.  The 
door  closes.  Pierre  looks  at  the  Princess,  his  eyes  filled 
with  sorrow.^ 

Loulou  attempts  suicide,  but  succeds  only  in  wound- 
ing herself.     The  curtain  of  the  final  act  rises  on 

159 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

the  room  in  the  hospital  where  she  is  convalescing. 
The  bitterness  of  the  loss  of  her  husband  and  the 
events  immediately  following  are  over,  and  Lou- 
lou  is  at  least  temporarily  calm.  The  Princess  and 
even  Pierre  himself  come  to  visit  her.  Pierre  now 
has  only  an  affectionate  regard  for  his  former  wife. 
"/)h,  how  I  wish,"  he  tells  her,  "  I  could  love  you 
as  I  used  to,  Loulou,  as  you  now  love  me  —  but 
if  I  can't  I  can't.  It  must  be !  If  a  wish  could 
make  my  love  live  again,  it  would  live !  You 
would  be  the  happiest  of  women."  And  she  re- 
plies, "  I  feel  how  deeply  you  suffer  in  not  being 
able  to  love  me,  Pierrot — "  .  .  .  Pierre  con- 
tinues, *'  It's  a  terrible  thing  to  see  a  former  love 
dying  in  oneself  —  like  a  child  you  want  to  help. 
When  you  say  to  it,  '  Little  one,'  it  disappears  in 
your  arms  the  harder  you  press  it.  .  .  .  {Pierre's 
body  is  shaken  with  grief.)  Yet  it's  not  my 
fault." 

LoLETTE.  I  understand ;  I  know  what  efforts  you  are 
making.  You  are  struggling !  You  needn't  explain ;  your 
face  is  enough.  Oh,  Pierre,  God  preserve  you  frorri  seeing 
the  expression  on  the  face  of  a  woman  who  doesn't  love 
you  any  longer.     It's  agonizing! 

Pierre.  I  firmly  believe  we  can  be  happy  together. 
.  .  .  You  have  had  the  best  of  me  —  we  can't  find  our 
youth  and  our  love  again.  Take  what  I  can  give  you,  and 
don't  ask  for  more.  I  feel  so  deeply  for  you!  I  don't 
know  what  to  call  it,  but  if  you  can  call  it  love,  you  don't 
know  how  happy  I  should  be! 

LoLETTE.  I'm  too  —  I'd  like  —  I  don't  know  what  I 
want  —  air —  rest  — 

Pierre.  I  know  how  I'm  torturing  you  —  I'll  get  you 
those  photographs —  [He  gives  her  his  hand.}  You 
don't  blame  me  too  much  for  what  I've  said? 

1 60 


HENRY  BATAILLE 


LoLETTE.  No  —  and  thank  you !  You've  said  things 
no  one  else  ever  dared  say:  you  are  frank.  You're  not 
terrible,  Pierre;  only  love  is!  .  .  . 

Pierre  leaves.  Rouchard,  a  former  friend  of 
Lolette,  comes  and  persuades  her  to  go  with  him. 
Lolette,  in  despair,  gets  up  from  her  bed,  and 
decides  to  go.  The  nurse,  who  comes  in  as 
Lolette  is  dressing,  asks  Rouchard  what  she  is  to 
tell  Pierre  when  he  returns.  Rouchard  replies, 
"  Tell  him  that  I  have  picked  up  the  package  he 
dropped  on  the  road,  and  that  I  will  carry  it  to  its 
destination." 

La  Marche  nuptiale  is  somewhat  similar  in 
theme  and  treatment:  a  young  couple  from  the 
provinces  come  to  Paris,  fortified  against  the 
battles  of  life  with  a  little  money  and  infinite  hope. 
They  are  truly  happy  for,  in  spite  of  a  great  op- 
position on  the  part  of  their  respective  families, 
they  have  chosen  the  desired  course.  The  wife 
is  tempted  —  then  comes  the  tragedy.  But  the 
story  matters  little.  In  the  earlier  scenes  the  poet 
has  drawn  unforgettable  scenes,  charming  in  de- 
tail and  firm  in  outline.  In  both  these  plays  there 
is  no  solution,  no  answer  to  a  question,  no  attempt 
to  prove  a  thesis  or  set  a  problem.  In  this  one 
respect,  Bataille  is  like  Ibsen;  he  may  ask  ques- 
tions —  any  dramatist  who  goes  straight  to  the 
life  of  his  time  for  his  material  will  do  that  — 
but  he  makes  no  attempt  to  answer  them.  In  his 
well-known  introduction  to  the  volume  contain- 
ing Le  Masque  and  La  Marche  nuptiale,  he  says: 
"  The  theater  is  decidedly  not  the  place  to  expose 
ideas ;  it  must  merely  suggest  them.     Plays  ought 

i6i 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

to  have  a  theme  somewhere,  a  philosophical  un- 
derlying idea,  just  as  clothes  have  well-concealed 
seams.  If  it  is  necessary  for  the  dramatist  to  set 
forth  an  obvious  idea,  the  audience  ought  not  to 
be  forced  to  accept  it :  the  work  must  stand  or  fall 
on  its  own  merits.  Ideas  are  for  us  a  side-issue, 
the  main  point  is  to  give  the  spectator,  through  his 
senses,  a  more  penetrating  and  more  vivid  view  of 
life.  .  .  .  The  personages  of  the  play  should  act 
freely,  according  to  their  proper  character,  not 
according  to  the  exigencies  of  the  theme.  They 
should  carry  on  the  play,  not  the  play  them." 
Ibsen  said  practically  the  same  thing  in  a  conver- 
sation quoted  by  Prozor,  the  French  translator  of 
Ibsen:  *'  And  I  cannot  help  it  if  in  my  own  brain 
as  I  write,  various  ideas  take  root.  That  is 
merely  accessory;  the  first  principle  of  a  play  Is 
action,  life." 

The  best  plays  of  Henry  Bataille  are  true 
"slices  of  life";  the  "hanging"  ends  of  La 
Femme  nue  and  PoUche,  where  Loulou  and  Poliche 
continue  drifting,  as  do  Giulia  and  Tommy  in 
Giacosa's  Come  le  Fogl'te,  are  much  nearer  life 
than  many  of  the  forced  denouements  of  Hervieu 
and  Brieux. 

Poliche^  while  it  does  not  treat  in  so  serious  a 
manner  a  question  of  such  universal  interest  as 
La  Femme  nue  or  La  Marche  nuptiale,  is  without 
doubt  one  of  the  most  pleasantly  pathetic  comedies 
of  recent  years;  its  theme,  in  the  loose  sense 
adopted  in  the  author's  definition,  is  similar  to  that 
of  Donnay's  Amants.  It  recounts  the  obstacles 
which  arise  sooner  or  later,  and  which  lie  in  the 
way  of  the  free-love  union.     Poliche  Is  passion- 

162 


{ 


HENRY  BATAILLE 


ately  in  love  with  a  woman  whom  he  supposes 
cares  for  him  only  when  he  plays  the  buffoon. 
She  learns  afterward  that  he  is  at  bottom  serious, 
and  the  two  go  off  into  the  country  on  their  sen- 
timental journey.  But  the  specter  of  "  society," 
ready  to  condemn  —  even  in  France  —  unions 
such  as  theirs,  and  the  haunting  fear  of  incom- 
patibihty,  close  round  them,  and  the  two  separate. 
Seated  in  a  dark  little  railway  station,  Rosine  and 
Poliche  await  the  train  which  is  to  take  Rosine  to 
Paris. 

Rosine.  How  stupid  life  is!  How  utterly  stupid! 
Here  we  are  within  an  ace  of  being  happy!  You  have 
only  to  wish,  perhaps  —  hold  me  by  main  force  — ! 

Poliche.     I  hardly  think  — 

Rosine.     Dear  friend,  my  only  friend ! 

Poliche.  Above  all,  don't  accuse  yourself.  .  .  .  Ours 
is  only  a  little  story,  nothing  great  —  You're  exquisite, 
that's  certain.  Charming,  perfectly  charming!  [He 
makes  a  vague  gesture  in  the  air.^  Like  this  —  or  like 
that!     That's  the  main  point. 

Rosine.     You  don't  want  me  to  stay  with  you! 

Poliche.  No,  no,  I  don't,  /  am  putting  an  end  to 
your  happiness  voluntarily.  Repeat  that  to  yourself,  so 
that  you  shan't  forget  it,  when  you  begin  to  feel  remorse 
—  later  on  —  /  wished  it  to  be  so  — 

Rosine.  Come  with  me  just  to  Paris  —  won't  you? 
Why  not  ?  Come !  It's  going  to  be  so  sad  ;  the  evenings, 
in  our  house  here!  You  all  alone!  And  our  room! 
Come  —  you  can  take  the  train  back  to-morrow  — 

Poliche.     [Shaking  his  head.]     No,  mustn't  — 

Rosine.  .  .  .  What'll  our  friends  say,  and  the  friends 
who  are  expecting  you? 

Poliche.  Bah!  One  Poliche  is  lost,  ten  new  ones 
are  found  again.     How  many  men  are  there  like  me  who, 

163 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

for  a  year  or  two  amuse  Paris,  break  glasses  at  Maxim's  — 
flash  their  way  across  the  sky  —  as  I  have  with  you,  and 
then  leave — ?  I've  had  predecessors!  And  I'll  have 
successors!  .  .  .  They  have  disappeared,  as  I'm  disappear- 
ing: going  back  into  circulation  again.  People  imagine 
they've  come  to  some  romantic  end.  No,  no,  I  know. 
They're  where  I  am:  at  Lyon  —  or  Bordeaux,  selling 
wine.  .  .  .  Sundays  they  think  of  their  youth  —  they 
think  of  you,  Rosine. 

RosiNE.  Oh,  Poliche!  [The  waiter  has  turned  on 
the  gas,  which  illuminates  the  little  bar.'\   .  .  . 

The  Maid.  \^Entering.'\  Madame,  shall  I  take  the 
valise  ? 

Rosine.     Yes —     \^The  Maid  takes  the  valise.^ 

Maid.     Shall  I  reserve  a  place? 

Rosine.  Yes  —  and  take  the  dog.  [The  Maid  takes 
the  dog.  .  .  .  The  train  is  heard  in  the  distance.^  .  .  . 
The  train  ?     So  soon  ? 

Maid.     They've  called  it. 

Rosine,  Go  now.  [The  Maid  goes  out.']  Dearest! 
Dearest !  My  love  1  Take  my  hand !  Press  it,  press  it, 
hard !  There !  Now,  look  in  my  eyes  —  for  a  long  time ! 
[She  takes  his  hand  and  gazes  at  him.  Her  eyes  are  seen 
sparkling  from  under  the  heavy  veil.]     Say:  I  love  you! 

Poliche.     I  love  you! 

Rosine.  [Sobbing.]  Adieu,  Didier! —  Why,  why 
didn't  you  —  want  to  come  —  with  me?     Why? 

Poliche.  Sh!  These  aren't  the  things  to  say,  dear, 
when  we  have  only  two  minutes  more  together  —  two 
minutes!     Listen!     The  train's  nearer  now! 

Rosine.     My  God,  my  God! 

Poliche.  [Gazing  at  her;  softly,  slowly.]  You  are 
exquisite —  [An  Employee  comes  through  the  room. 
It  has  begun  to  rain  outside.] 

Rosine.     Soon?     Don't  forget!     At  once? 

Poliche.    Yes. 

Rosine.     Send  me  a  post-card  to-morrow  —  and  look 

164 


J 


HENRY  BATAILLE 


out  for  your  lame  shoulder  —  don't  stay  too  long  in  that 
damp  house  — 

PoLlCHE.  No,  no  —  [In  the  distance  the  signal  over 
the  tracks  changes  color.  The  train  is  heard  entering  the 
station.^ 

Employee.     .  .  .  Passengers  for  Paris!     All  aboard! 

PoLiCHE.  [To  the  Employee,  in  a  loud  voice.] 
Does  Madame  have  to  cross  the  tracks? 

Employee.     No,  train's  on  the  first  track  —  left.  .  .  . 

PoLiCHE.  You  mustn't  miss  your  train !  [He  taps  on 
a  saucer,  and  the  waiter  comes.]      How  much,  gargon? 

Waiter.  Two  Chartreuses  —  one  franc  twenty. 
[PoLiCHE  pays.] 

Maid.  [Reentering.]  It's  begun  to  rain. —  Does 
Madame  want  me  to  take  out  an  umbrella?  .  .  . 

RosiNE.  Now,  you  go  on  ahead  —  [Passengers  are 
seen  getting  into  the  train,  outside.]  I  can't!  I  can't! 
[She  is  choked  with  sobs.] 

PoLiCHE.  Come,  we  must  separate  here!  That's  bet- 
ter.    I  shan't  take  you  to  your  compartment. 

RosiNE.     Why? 

PoLiCHE.  No  —  a  man  crying!  It's  ridiculous  — 
people  would  laugh.  .  .  .  I'm  afraid  —  Here's  your  train 
now. 

RosiNE.     Didier —     [They  rise.] 

Employee.  [Shouting  outside.]  All  aboard  for 
Paris!     All  aboard! 

PoLiCHE.  Here,  don't  forget  the  little  bag.  Come 
now,  just  one  little  smile,  Rosine!     Adieu  —  my  life! 

RosiNE.  No,  no,  no,  don't  say  that!  I'll  see  you 
soon ! 

POLICHE.     Yes.      [They  kiss,  simply.]     Adieu,  Rosine. 

Rosine.  I,  I  —  [She  wants  to  say  something,  but  is 
unable.     She  is  again  convulsed  with  sobs.]   .  .  . 

Employee.  [Outside.]  All  aboard!  All  aboard! 
[Rosine  disappears  through  the  door.  Then  Poliche 
stands  in  the  doorway,  dazed,  his  eyes  riveted  in  the  di- 

165 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

rection  of  the  train.  Then,  timidly,  awkwardly,  he  takes 
out  a  little  pink  handkerchief,  and  waves  it  two  or  three 
times  in  the  air.  The  train  luhistles.  As  he  turns  to  go, 
head  bowed,  collar  up-turned,  his  hat  over  his  eyes,  he 
jostles  a  man  who  is  late  for  the  train,  and  knocks  his  cane 
out  of  his  hand.^ 

The  Passenger.     [Gruffly.]     Can't  you  look  out? 

PoLiCHE.  [Stoops  down,  picks  up  the  cane,  gives  it  to 
the  man  and,  smiling  through  his  tears,  says:]  Pardon! 

For  some  years  Bataille  made  no  use  of  his  gift 
for  poetry,  but  in  his  slight  and  short  dream-play, 
Le  Songe  d'une  nuit  d'amour,  he  proved  that  he 
could  adapt  to  the  dramatic  form  those  free  and 
supple  meters  which  are  among  the  chief  charms 
of  La  Chambre  blanche. 

Earher  in  the  present  sketch  I  spoke  of  Ba- 
taille's  abandonment  of  the  practical  side  of  stage 
management  and  remarked  that  had  he  continued 
to  write  fairy  plays  and  interest  himself  in  their 
artistic  production,  France  might  have  been  richer 
by  one  original  producer.  It  is  a  hopeful  sign 
that  Bataille  seems  to  be  returning  to  his  earlier 
manner.  It  happens  that  his  three  latest  plays 
have  been  in  prose  and  are  in  theme  and  treat- 
ment similar  to  the  foregoing  works,  but  he  has 
two  plays,  both  cast  in  poetic  form  and  based  on 
legends  and  stories  —  Faust  and  Manon  fille 
galante  —  the  production  of  which,  is  attended 
with  exceptional  interest.  Will  the  poet  insist  on 
a  proper  mise  en  scene,  and  not  the  usual  "  stock  " 
setting,  or  has  he  become  so  successful  of  late  that 
he  leaves  these  details  to  the  unimaginative  man- 
ager? 

1 66 


HENRY  BERNSTEIN 

Bernstein's  chief  claim  upon  our  consideration 
in  a  volume  of  this  kind  is  that  he  has  always 
kept  clear  of  the  theater  of  ideas.  The  French 
drama  of  to-day,  like  that  of  most  other  Euro- 
pean nations,  is  too  busy  propounding  theses  and 
ideas  and  too  little  occupied  with  the  delineation 
of  character  for  its  own  sake,  and  the  writing  of 
plays  as  plays.  It  is  then  almost  a  relief  to  come 
to  a  man  of  the  theater,  in  the  sense  that  Scribe 
and  Sardou  were  men  of  the  theater.  It  can  with 
some  justice  be  averred  that  no  play  worthy  the 
name  can  be  written  without  an  idea  at  all,  but  he 
who  wishes  to  furnish  his  audience  with  the  req- 
uisite number  of  laughs  and  thrills  will  leave  his 
ideas  to  be  elucidated  by  the  critics  and  the  think- 
ing part  of  his  audience.  Bernstein  has  ideas,  but 
they  rarely  trouble  him;  he  never  sacrifices  his 
play  for  their  sake,  as  Brieux  and  Hervieu  some- 
times do.  His  ideas  are  merely  accessory,  and 
serve  but  to  bind  together  a  fabric  which  might 
otherwise  fall  to  pieces. 

Bernstein  then  is  a  born  dramatist.  For  him, 
the  play's  the  thing.  Each  of  his  plays  is  a  situa- 
tion with  a  plot,  not  a  plot  out  of  which  the  situa- 
tion seems  to  develop  of  its  own  accord.  The 
first  act  of  a  Bernstein  play  is  usually  the  baldest 
sort  of  exposition  and  preparation.     This  drama- 

167 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

tist  has  never  failed  to  supply  his  audience  with  one 
overwhelming  scene,  one  tremendous  climax,  so 
that  if  at  times  the  first  act  tends  to  be  dull,  the 
audience,  knowing  its  author,  is  willing  to  sit  pa- 
tiently until  the  scene  a  faire,  confident  of  the  re- 
ward awaiting  it. 

The  Bernstein  formula  is  so  well  fixed,  there  is 
so  great  a  uniformity  throughout  his  works,  such 
similarity  among  the  characters,  that  there  is  no 
necessity  to  more  than  outline  his  more  important 
plays,  and  dwell  upon  the  particulars  of  but  one 
or  two. 

In  1900  his  first  play,  Le  Marche,  was  produced 
at  the  Theatre  Antoine.  It  was  eminently  suc- 
cessful, as  were  those  which  immediately  followed 
it:  Le  Detour,  two  years  later,  and  Joujou,  pro- 
duced the  same  year  as  Le  Detour.  Le  Bercail 
and  La  Rafale  were  even  more  successful.  In 
La  Grijfe,  1906,  Bernstein  attempts,  with  some 
skill,  to  analyze  character.  This  psychological 
piece  is  the  only  one  in  which  the  author  hesitates 
to  attack  the  "  big  scene  at  the  expected  moment  " ; 
with  the  result  that  he  falls  between  two  stools.  It 
must  be  conceded  that  Bernstein  as  a  psychologist 
is  decidedly  inferior  to  Bernstein  as  a  dramatist, 
and  that  his  psychological  bent  led  him  astray  as  a 
dramatist. 

Le  Voleur  —  played  in  the  United  States  in  an 
adaptation  known  as  The  Thief  —  is  probably  the 
most  celebrated  of  the  Bernstein  plays.  In  the 
*'  big  "  act,  the  second,  the  author  is  at  his  best. 
In  this  duologue,  which  occupies  the  entire  act,  is 
one  of  those  powerful  cross-examination,  discov- 
'  ery-of-guilt-and-confession   scenes   which,   though 

168 


HENRY  BERNSTEIN 


he  was  not  the  originator,  Bernstein  has  carried  to 
its  highest  dramatic  development.  Beside  this, 
the  third  act  of  Mrs.  Dane's  Defence  and  even  the 
second  act  of  La  Robe  rouge,  appear  a  trifle  pale. 
The  second  act  of  Le  Voleur  may  be  the  sheerest 
bravado,  but  It  Is  so  consummately  built,  so  well 
rounded  out,  so  tense,  stirring,  crushing,  that  we 
can  scarcely  bring  reason  to  bear  while  watching 
or  even  reading  it.  Here  at  last  is  that  "  struggle 
between  conflicting  wills"  carried  to  the  Nth; 
Brunetlere  could  not  but  have  admired  the  skill  of 
the  builder. 

In  the  American  productions  of  Le  Voleur, 
Israel,  and  Samson,  these  plays  were  so  adapted 
that  very  little  of  Bernstein  remained.  And 
Bernstein,  as  well  as  our  producers,  may  be  blamed 
for  the  cutting.  This  may  well  be  a  further  illus- 
tration of  Bernstein's  business  attitude  toward  his 
profession,  yet  we  must  lay  the  blame  on  our 
producers  who  rarely  if  ever  allow  us  to  see  a 
foreign  play  as  it  was  written.  If  they  would 
once  allow  the  foreigners  to  speak  for  themselves, 
I  feel  sure  such  plays  as  Israel,  Samson,  La  V'lerge 
folle,  La  Flambee,  and  Pour  V'lvre  heureux,  would 
not  so  soon  come  to  grief.  We  should  also  have 
some  fair  idea  as  to  what  Bernstein,  Bataille, 
Kistemaeckers,  and  Rivoire  are  doing. 

Le  Voleur  Is  the  story  of  a  woman  who  Induces 
the  eighteen-year-old  son  of  her  hosts,  at  whose 
home  she  is  staying  with  her  husband,  to  steal 
considerable  sums  of  money.  The  youth  Is  In 
love  with  Marie-Louise  and  she,  who  adores  her 
husband,  uses  the  money  "  to  make  herself  beau- 
tiful in  his  eyes."     Lagardes,  the  boy's  father,  has 

169 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

put  a  detective  on  the  case  and,  at  the  end  of  the 
first  act,  learns  who  the  thief  is.  The  second  act 
is  occupied  with  the  explanation  that  takes  place 
between  Richard  and  Marie-Louise.  It  is  past 
midnight.  Richard,  interested  in  the  boy's  con- 
fession, and  struck  with  his  explanation  of  how  he 
opened  the  drawer  where  the  bank-notes  lay,  tries 
the  same  experiment  on  a  locked  drawer  in  his 
own  room.  Marie-Louise,  it  is  at  once  evident, 
wishes  to  conceal  something  from  him,  and  his 
suspicions  are  aroused.  He  opens  the  drawer  and 
finds  a  pocket-book.  At  first  it  appears  to  be 
empty,  then  he  feels  a  packet  of  papers  —  bank- 
notes. Six  hundred  —  no,  six  thousand  francs! 
Where  did  she  get  so  much  money?  Savings? 
There  is  a  moment  of  suspense  as  Richard  ques- 
tions her.  *' Where  did  you  get  the  money? 
Fernand  didn't  steal  that  money  for  himself?  Or 
did  you  steal  it  too?  "  — "  Fernand  did  not  steal 
it."  "Then— ?"—"  Fernand  assumed  the 
blame  in  order  to  save  me!  I  stole  the  twenty 
thousand  francs." — "Why  did  you  steal  it?" — 
"  Because  I  adored  you;  I  wanted  to  be  beautiful 
to  please  you!" — "But  why  did  Fernand 
acknowledge  a  theft  of  which  he  was  innocent?  " 
— "Because  I  asked  him  to." — "Where? 
When?  "— "  This  evening,  in  the  park."—"  Why 
did  he  consent?  " — "  Because  he  loves  me!  " 

And  the  play  is  over,  yet  the  characters  must  be 
disposed  of.  The  last  act  is  feeble,  because  the 
whole  situation,  prepared  for  in  the  first,  has 
been  fully  developed  in  the  second.  Fernand  goes 
away  to  South  America,  Marie-Louise  is  forgiven, 
and  calm  reigns  again. 

170 


HENRY  BERNSTEIN 


Artificial  as  the  action  is,  unsatisfying  as  its 
morality  may  be,  Le  Voleur  is  a  vigorous  play 
with  one  superlative  act. 

Bernstein  sees  the  life  about  him  from  a  far 
different  angle  from  that  of  his  contemporaries. 
Capus,  Flers  and  Caillavet,  and  their  followers, 
ripple  the  surface,  and  leave  us  with  a  certain  feel- 
ing of  optimism;  Brieux  and  Hervieu  dissect  the 
minds  and  motives  of  individuals,  dig  deep  to  the 
roots  of  social  evils,  and  tell  us  what  is  wrong  in 
our  social  machinery,  but  Bernstein  sees  life  in  big 
situations.  A  strong  man  at  variance  with  soci- 
ety, a  woman  who  is  unhappily  married,  a  wife 
who  steals  and  causes  others  to  steal,  in  order  to  be 
more  attractive  to  her  husband;  these  conditions 
he  synthesizes,  without  comment,  without  judg- 
ment, and  shapes  into  plays. 

Samson  recounts  the  story  of  a  terrible  venge- 
ance. Jacques  Branchard,  a  former  dock-porter 
of  Marseilles,  is  one  of  those  adventurers  who 
through  indomitable  will-power  have  built  up  a 
large  fortune  and  married  into  "  society."  Anne- 
Marie,  his  wife,  has  been  forced  to  marry  Jacques, 
in  order  to  restore  the  ruined  family  fortunes. 
She  is  not  long  in  seeking  "  consolation "  else- 
where: she  becomes  the  mistress  of  Le  Govain. 
One  night  when  Jacques  is  thought  to  have  gone 
away  the  lover  comes  to  Anne-Marie's  home,  and 
takes  her  to  a  restaurant  frequented  by  demi- 
mondaines;  but  Anne-Marie  is  disgusted  with  the 
scenes  of  sickening  debauchery,  and  leaves  the 
place.  At  home,  she  meets  her  husband,  who  has 
been  informed  of  the  intended  escapade,  and  re- 
mained in  Paris.     Refusing  to  explain  her  coH' 

171 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

duct  to  her  husband,  she  expresses  no  regret  or  no 
intention  of  giving  up  her  lover.  Meantime, 
Jacques  plans  his  revenge.  Not  long  after,  he  in- 
vites Le  Govain  to  a  private  dining-room  at  the 
Ritz,  and  there  tells  him  that  he,  Jacques  Branch- 
ard,  is  causing  the  stocks  which  control  the  for- 
tunes of  both  men,  to  drop  to  a  point  where  they 
(Branchard  and  Le  Govain)  will  both  be  ruined. 
The  scene  in  the  hotel  is  the  expected  "  Bernstein 
scene."  The  fearful  power  of  the  vengeful  Jew, 
and  his  repression  in  the  presence  of  the  helpless 
Le  Govain,  are  depicted  in  the  author's  best  man- 
ner. This  new  vengeance  is  quickly  explained  to 
the  frightened  victim : 

Jacques.  Don't  you  understand  yet?  Ha!  Le 
Govain,  my  dear  friend,  you  are  my  wife's  lover,  and  I  am 
now  ruining  you.  Now  do  you  understand  ?  .  .  .  I  don't 
want  to  fight  a  duel  with  you.  I  detest  the  role  of  vic- 
tim! I  consider  it  very  stupid.  I  am  now  fighting  with 
my  own  weapons,  and  on  my  own  duelling-ground.  We 
meet  here  in  this  room  —  this  empty  room.  Call  for  help 
as  much  as  you  please,  you  will  disturb  no  one.  .  .  .  Here 
are  my  arms  and  my  fists  to  keep  you  with  me ;  I  tell  you, 
I  have  often  made  use  of  them.  But  you're  only  a  miser- 
able little  whelp,  you  can't  even  stand  up!  .  .  . 

Le  Govain  ventures  a  remark  about  "  honor." 

Jacques.  Honor?  To  hell  with  honor!  I  have  no 
honor.  The  suburb  of  Marseilles  where  I  was  born  was 
called  Thieves'  Corner.  People  passing  through  it  spat 
at  it  in  sign  of  hatred.  My  father's  house  was  our  illegal 
pawn-shop.  When  I  went  to  school  my  comrades  formed 
bands  to  torture  me.  ...  I  accepted  their  blows,  and  was 
afraid  of  them.     Once  —  it  was  instinct  —  in  a  fight,  I 

172 


HENRY  BERNSTEIN 


hit  one  of  them.  That  day  I  forced  them  into  a  sort  of 
complacent  hypocrisy.  That's  been  the  way  with  me  all 
my  life.  Hated  by  other  men,  I  went  among  them  with 
clenched  fists  .  .  .  jaws  set,  threatened  and  threaten- 
ing  .  .  ." 

Having  ruined  both  himself  and  his  victim,  he 
turns  to  his  wife,  his  last  consolation,  his  last  hope. 
He  wants  not  only  herself,  but  her  esteem  and  her 
love. 

Jacques.  Anne-Marie,  I  have  loved  you  before  I  even 
met  you  ...  in  the  gutters  of  Marseilles,  when  I  was  a 
little  street-urchin,  I  was  troubled  by  an  unforgettable 
passion.  ...  A  young  woman  of  the  aristocracy  it  was 
.  .  .  long  ago  1  Every  day  I  watched  her  leave  her  home ; 
she  passed  me,  delicate,  haughty,  patronizing,  she  walked 
by  the  little  fellow  who  lowered  his  eyes  as  she  came  near. 
Was  he  worthy  even  of  that?  .  .  .  That  image  decided 
me.  .  .  .  When  I  began  to  think  seriously  about  women, 
my  desires  went  out  to  that  vision  of  my  youth.  .  .  . 
Now  what  are  you  going  to  do  ?  Leave  me,  as  you  have  a 
right  to  do,  or  stay  with  me,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I  am 
ruined  ? 

Anne-Marie.     I  shall  stay  with  you.  .  .  . 

Jacques.     Will  you  love  me  —  in  time  .  .  .? 

Anne-Marie.     It  is  too  early  to  say  —  yet. 

Israel  is  one  of  the  finest  examples  of  pure 
drama  of  recent  times.  The  second  act,  the  act 
for  which  the  play  was  written,  is  superbly  con- 
structed; the  fluctuations  of  suspense,  every  imagi- 
nable surprise  of  which  the  situation  is  capable, 
are  guided  by  the  hand  of  a  master  craftsman. 
For  simplicity,  dignity,  and  power,  the  scene  is  of 
superlative  merit. 

The  young  Thibault,  Prince  de  Cler,  son  of  the 

173 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Duchess  de  Croucy,  is  a  violent  anti-Semite.  One 
day,  after  instigating  a  brutal  attack  on  the  Jews, 
he  plans,  together  with  certain  members  of  his 
club,  to  insult  a  Jew  of  the  name  of  Gutlieb  and 
demand  his  instant  resignation  from  the  club. 
Late  in  the  evening,  Thibault  and  his  associates  are 
gathered  in  the  lobby,  awaiting  Gutlieb.  As  Gut- 
lieb is  about  to  leave,  Thibault  asks  him  to  write 
out  his  resignation.  The  Jew  refuses  and  is  about 
to  leave,  when  Thibault  bars  his  way.  Again 
Gutlieb  tries  to  make  his  way  out  when  Thibault 
knocks  off  his  hat.  In  silence  the  Jew  picks  up  the 
hat  and  goes.  Gutlieb  must  either  resign  or  fight 
a  duel. 

Beginning  with  his  simple  situation,  Bernstein 
gradually  builds  up  his  scene.  Hearing  of  the 
incident,  Thibault's  mother  has  asked  Gutlieb  to 
come  to  see  her  on  the  following  day.  We  then 
learn  that  Thibault  is  the  illegitimate  son  of  Gut- 
lieb and  the  Duchess.  She  begs  Gutlieb  not  to 
fight  with  their  son,  but  Gutlieb  urges,  justly 
enough,  that  his  refusal  will  be  interpreted  as 
cowardice  and  reflect  upon  his  party  and  race  as 
well  as  upon  himself.  On  the  other  hand,  Thi- 
bault must  not  suspect  that  he  is  the  son  of  the 
hated  Jew.  The  mother  is  supplicating  Gutlieb 
when  —  Thibault  enters.  Gutlieb  retires,  and 
mother  and  son  are  left  together.  The  scene  is 
ominous  in  its  beginning.  Why,  asks  Thibault,  is 
his  mortal  enemy  at  his  mother's  home?  The 
Duchess  attempts  to  explain,  but  she  evades  the 
pointed  questions  of  her  son.  The  answers,  most 
skillfully  contrived,  serve  but  to  postpone  the  ex- 
planation and  final  revelation  of  the  terrible  secret. 

174 


HENRY  BERNSTEIN 


The  Duchess  naturally  wishes  to  have  her  son 
avoid  a  duel ;  that,  in  her  eyes,  is  a  crime,  and  this 
duel  —  out  of  the  question !  Thibault  at  length 
gives  in  and  says:  "  Well,  Mother,  I  make  you 
a  present  of  Gutlieb's  life :  I'll  let  the  matter  drop 
after  I  give  him  a  mere  scratch."  He  is  then 
about  to  confer  with  his  seconds,  when  he  returns 
to  the  Duchess.  He  has  changed  his  mind;  he 
must  have  further  light  on  the  subject.  "  But," 
she  replies,  "  I  have  explained  everything." — 
"  No,  you  have  merely  pacified  me :  you  have  ex- 
plained nothing.  Why  did  you  ask  a  favor  of 
him,  why  did  you  have  a  Jesuit,  Father  Silvain, 
sent  as  our  envoy  to  that  Jew?  "  The  Duchess, 
losing  her  presence  of  mind,  says  that  Thibault  is 
forgetting  his  duty  as  a  son,  that  he  must  ask  no 
further  questions.  He  then  tells  her  that  his 
uncle  informed  him  that  Gutlieb  was  once  a  friend 
of  hers;  did  his  father  perhaps  borrow  money  of 
the  Jew?  Is  she  under  any  obligation  to  him? 
Again  the  distracted  mother  sees  a  method  of  es- 
cape in  a  lie.  In  trying  to  persuade  her  son  of  the 
fact  that  she  is  under  no  obligation  to  Gutlieb,  she 
goes  too  far,  and  swears  "  By  the  Christ!  "  that 
there  is  nothing  — !  "  You  swear,"  he  says,  "  but 
what  do  you  swear?  That  Gutlieb  knows  of  no 
compromising  secrets  in  regard  to  my  father? 
Very  well,  but  perhaps  there  are  other  secrets. 
I  am  going  to  ask  him  in  person  what  those  secrets 
are !  "  He  attempts  to  go.  As  he  is  at  the  door, 
his  mother  screams.  "  Don't  go  !  Torture  me  if 
you  want;  ask  me  questions  —  I'll  answer!" — 
"  No,  Mother,  you  must  tell  me !  "  Then,  little 
by  little,  she  confesses :     "  Yes,  since  you  must 

175 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

know,  when  I  was  young  and  attractive,  Gutlieb 
loved  me,  without  daring  to  speak.  To-day  I 
took  advantage  of  those  old  memories." — "  You 
are  mistaken,  Mother,  the  Duchess  de  Croucy 
does  not  stoop  to  such  devices.  The  victim  is 
caught  in  the  wheels  —  there  is  no  way  out." — 
She  then  confesses  that  she  was  herself  deeply  in 
love  with  Gutlieb.  "  Did  that  love  remain  ab- 
solutely pure?  Will  you  swear  that  on  the  name 
of  the  Christ,  as  you  just  did?  " — "  No,  I  will  not 
invoke  His  name  in  vain !  " — *'  Mother,  you 
should  have  sworn  that !  "  He  is  about  to  go  to 
Gutlieb,  and  again  his  mother  stops  him :  "  Poor 
boy,  listen  to  me,  look  me  in  the  eyes.  You  can- 
not strike  that  man!  " — "  You  lie!  "  he  shouts  to 
her.  But,  realizing  at  length  the  horrible  truth, 
he  goes  out,  crushed. 

There  are  situations  and  plays  for  which  no 
denouement  exists.  Israel,  like  Hervieu's  Le 
Dedale,  is  one  of  these.  The  second  act  is  the 
play.  Reconciliation  is  of  course  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, so  that  suicide  is  the  only  solution  for  Thi- 
bault.  Were  it  not  that  audiences  demand  some 
sort  of  winding-up,  some  arbitrary  termination  to 
a  story,  Bernstein  might  better  have  closed  his 
play  on  the  curtain  of  the  second  act.  The 
denouement  we  must  accept  as  we  do  that  of  a 
Moliere  farce. 

The  hypothesis  of  Israel  is  certainly  possible, 
but  hardly  probable.  It  is  very  unusual.  Given, 
however,  the  hypothesis,  which  the  dramatist  is 
careful  to  make  plausible,  the  rest  follows.  If  a 
criticism  may  be  urged  against  the  play  as  a  whole, 
it  is  this. 

176 


HENRY  BERNSTEIN 


The  later  works  of  Bernstein,  after  such  plays 
as  Israel,  come  as  something  of  an  anticlimax. 
Apres  Moif  is  remembered  mainly  because  of  the 
disgraceful  anti-Semite  riots  it  aroused  and  which 
caused  its  withdrawal  from  the  boards  of  the 
Comedie  Fran^aise.  It  is  a  drama  of  passion  not 
unlike  the  earliest  plays.  L'Assaut  —  played  in 
the  United  States  by  John  Mason  as  The  Attack 
—  somehow  lacks  the  vigor  of  Samson  and  Le 
Voleur  —  while  the  last  act  is  particularly  weak. 
It  contains  what  may  be  taken  as  biographical  facts 
from  the  author's  life,  but  this  scarcely  suffices  to 
keep  it  alive.  Le  Secret,  the  latest  play,  has  en- 
joyed only  a  moderate  success,  and  that  was  due 
mainly  to  the  superb  acting  of  Madame  Simone. 

Adolphe  Brisson,  the  erratic  but  clever  critic  of 
Le  Temps,  said  of  Bernstein :  "  In  his  plays  there 
is  not  a  ray  of  sunshine  over  the  mud;  not  a  flower 
blossoming  in  the  sewer:  no  ideal,  no  sacrifice; 
over  all  is  the  dull  satisfaction  of  the  appetites, 
wallowing  in  the  dirt;  death,  nothingness."  Were 
Bernstein  an  avowed  commentator  on  life,  were 
he  a  dramatist  of  ideas,  there  might  be  some  jus- 
tice in  M.  Brisson's  words,  but,  while  he  does  peo- 
ple his  works  with  characters  for  the  most  part 
whom  "  one  would  not  care  to  meet,"  Bernstein 
should  not  be  held  too  strictly  to  account  for  his 
subject-matter.  Had  the  critic  oi  Le  Temps  said 
that  Bernstein  was  doomed  to  oblivion,  owing  to 
his  preoccupation  with  sordid  characters,  his  cast- 
ing aside  of  any  pretense  to  the  expression  of  new 
ideas  or  to  the  depiction  of  good  and  noble  types, 
he  might  have  been  nearer  the  truth. 


177 


ROBERT  DE  FLERS  AND  GASTON- 
ARMAND  DE  CAILLAVET 

One  of  the  most  successful  of  collaborations 
between  dramatists  is  that  of  Robert  de  Flers  and 
Gaston-Armand  de  Caillavet.^  During  the  past 
fourteen  years  these  "  twin  stars  of  the  heaven  " 
of  light  comedy  have  illuminated  the  boulevards  of 
Paris  and  afforded  light  to  most  of  the  theatrical 
centers  of  the  world.  One  collaboration  recalls 
another,  and  the  closest  analogy  to  the  pair  in  ques- 
tion is  that  of  Meilhac  and  Halevy. 

M.  de  Caillavet  told  me  that  these  writers  were 
in  a  manner  an  inspiration  to  him  and  his  asso- 
ciate, that  they  at  one  time  served  as  models,  that 
—  but  M.  de  Caillavet  Is  so  delightful  a  raconteur 
that  I  shall  permit  him  to  tell,  in  what  I  recall  of  a 
pleasant  conversation,  of  the  debuts  of  himself 
and  M.  de  Flers,  their  ideas,  and  something  of 
their  method  of  working.  Seated  in  his  magnifi- 
cent mansion  in  the  Avenue  Hoche  one  morning, 
clothed  in  a  plum-colored  dressing-gown,  a  silk 
handkerchief  wound  about  his  neck,  genial,  refined, 
distingue,  communicative  and  eager  to  answer 
questions  and  anticipate  them,  he  told  in  some- 
what the  following  words  the  story  of  that  col- 
laboration which,  as  he  expressed  It,  was  the  happy 

1  Since  the  above  was  written,  news  comes  that  M.  de  Cail- 
lavet is  dead  (Winter  1915). 

178 


FLERS  AND  CAILLAVET 


outcome  of  what  seemed  to  him  the  mingling  of 
"  elective  affinities  "  : 

"  I  wanted  to  enter  the  Ecole  des  Chartes  and 
do  historical  research  work;  M.  de  Flers  wished 
likewise  to  be  a  historian,  but,  as  you  see,  Fate 
decreed  otherwise.  We  first  met  in  1887,  and 
each  felt  that  the  other  was  destined  to  be  a  life- 
long friend.  It  was  not  for  some  years  to  come 
that  we  actually  wrote  plays  together;  meantime 
we  went  our  respective  ways.  I  became  a  director 
of  revues.  The  little  theater  where  these  were 
given  was  situated  on  the  first  floor  of  the  Eiffel 
Tower.  When  I  worked  there,  I  received  my 
first  and  in  many  ways  most  valuable  criticism. 
You  see,  I  had  to  go  up  in  an  elevator  with  my 
audience  —  and  come  down,  too.  That  was  the 
worst  part  of  it.  It  was  during  those  descents 
that  I  heard  things  about  myself  and  my  work, 
things  that  I  blushed  to  learn  —  but  I  think  I 
profited  by  the  opinions  thus  expressed.  From 
the  little  revues  I  turned  my  hand  to  farces,  slight 
things  for  the  most  part,  which  were  produced  at 
the  Palais  Royal.  Meantime,  M.  de  Flers  had 
entered  the  newspaper  world  (he  is  now  dramatic 
critic  on  the  Figaro  ^)  ;  he  had  also  written  a  num- 
ber of  short  stories  and  some  travel  books.  In 
1900  the  time  was  ripe  for  us  to  join  forces. 

"  That  year  we  wrote  a  ballet  comic  opera,  Les 
Travaux  d'Hercule.  We  had  the  devil's  own 
time  getting  it  accepted,  but  finally  one  manager 
took  it  as  a  stop-gap,  and  incidentally  made  quite 
a  success  of  it.     Our  next  play,  Les  Sentiers  de  la 

1  After  the  assassination  of  Gaston  Calmette,  Robert  de  Flers 
and  Alfred  Capus  were  made  joint  editors  of  the  Figaro. 

179 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

vertu,  was  a  prose  comedy.  Again,  we  had 
trouble  getting  the  play  produced,  but  its  produc- 
tion was  attended  by  some  degree  of  success. 
Then  we  were  on  our  feet."  (And  here  modesty 
forbade  M.  de  Caillavet's  adding  that  the  pair  had 
never  known  a  failure  and  that  half  a  dozen  of 
their  plays  had  had  several  thousand  nights'  runs 
in  nearly  every  country  of  the  world) . 

"  Like  Meilhac  and  Halevy,  we  have  attempted 
to  write  satirical  comedies  in  a  light  vein;  they  are 
concerned  with  political  and  religious  matters  at 
times,  and  are  often  sentimental  or  burlesque  in 
character.  Until  1907  however,  we  were  unable 
to  carry  our  disrespect  for  things  as  they  are  very 
far  into  the  pohtical  field,  but  since  the  abolish- 
ment of  the  censorship  that  year,  we  have  done 
what  I  think  is  some  of  our  best  work.  I  have  al- 
ready said  that  we  respected  nothing  —  church, 
state,  religious  belief,  or  persons  —  and  in  Le 
Bois  sacre,  V Habit  vert  and  Le  Rot,  we  have 
satirized  in  turn  the  Legion  of  Honor,  the 
Academie  Frangaise,  and  the  national  custom  of 
entertaining  members  of  royalty  who  visit  Paris. 
Had  the  censorship  still  been  in  working  order 
these  plays  would  never  have  been  written. 

*'  You  may  have  noticed  that  our  plays  fall  into 
more  or  less  clearly  defined  groups :  sentimental 
comedies,  with  tears  and  laughs  —  like  U Amour 
veille  — ,  political  plays  —  like  those  I  have  just 
referred  to  — ,  burlesques  —  like  Les  Travaux 
d'Hercule  —  simple  comedies  of  manners  —  like 
Papa,  Miquette  et  sa  mere,  UEventail,  and  L'Ane 
de  Buridan  —  and  so  on.  You  understand,  too, 
that  there  is  a  strain  of  philosophy  running  through 

180 


FLERS  AND  CAILLAVET 


all  these  plays?  We  French  must  always  have 
that.  Underlying  even  the  lightest  of  our  farces, 
there  is  some  definite  'theme,'  shall  I  say?  but 
we  try  to  keep  it  well  out  of  sight. 

"  Our  system  of  collaboration  works  so  well  that 
I  am  really  unable  to  say  which  part  of  a  play  is 
my  own  and  which  my  partner's.  In  fact,  we  talk 
a  plot  over,  one  of  us  rejecting  an  idea,  the  other 
arguing  in  its  favor.  It  is  curious,  but  often  one 
of  these  discussions  ends  by  my  accepting  my 
confrere's  proposal  and  rejecting  my  own,  while 
he  does  the  same  with  mine.  When  we  come  to 
the  dialogue,  we  talk  it  to  each  other;  thus  is  it 
made,  not  written.  We  have  come  now,  partly 
as  a  result  of  our  constant  working  together,  partly 
as  a  result  of  our  common  tastes,  to  think  as  well 
as  write  as  a  single  being. 

"  Precisely  what  our  function  in  the  contempo- 
rary French  drama  is  I  cannot  say;  I  can  only  re- 
mark that  we  are  attempting  to  paint  in  an  amusing 
way  the  foibles  and  vices  and  affectations  of  our 
time.  If  the  bulk  of  our  work  succeeds  in  depict- 
ing a  certain  section  of  the  life  of  Paris,  we  have 
ample  reason  to  be  thankful." 

That  "  necessary  "  philosophical  strain  to  which 
M.  de  Caillavet  referred,  never  seriously  inter- 
feres with  what  this  joyous  pair  consider  their  true 
function  in  the  French  drama  of  the  day:  amuse- 
ment. Their  plays  contain  only  that  basis,  solid 
enough  but  not  too  much  in  evidence,  which  any 
good  work  based  upon  life  must  have  In  order  to 
exist,  such  as  Labiche  infused  into  the  best  of  his 
comedies.  Flers  and  Caillavet  never  go  too  far, 
they  are  never  so  didactic  as  is  Shaw  even  in  the 

i8i 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

least  pointed  of  his  comedies:  You  Never  Can 
Tell.  The  philosophical  foundation  of  L' Amour 
veille  —  it  sounds  ridiculous  to  speak  of  it !  —  is 
simply  this:  "A  woman  can  be  saved  from  in- 
fidelity only  by  love,  not  by  the  love  which  she  in- 
spires, but  by  that  which  she  herself  feels.  It 
keeps  watch  over  her.  Only  the  diamond  can 
ward  off  the  rays  of  other  diamonds.  Love  alone 
is  strong  enough  to  defend  her  against  love." 
This  idea  is  surely  not  so  recondite  or  original 
that  we  need  fear  its  intrusion  to  the  detriment  of 
our  enjoyment  of  the  play.  Flers  and  Caillavet 
know  their  own  ability  and  their  limitations  so 
well  that  it  is  not  likely  that  they  will  be  tempted 
into  the  byways  of  the  thesis  play;  they  are  wise 
enough  to  leave  to  Curel,  Brieux,  and  Hervieu  the 
serious  analysis  of  human  motives.  From  the 
very  first  they  found  their  particular  genre,  or 
genres.  Generally  speaking,  their  work  can  be 
divided  into  two  parts;  in  the  realm  of  the  sen- 
timental are  VAmour  veille,  L'Eventail,  Papa, 
Miquette  et  sa  mere,  L'Ane  de  Buridan,  and 
Primerose;  in  the  realm  of  the  political,  Le  Bois 
sacre,  Le  Rot,  and  L'Habit  vert. 

VAmour  veille  is  one  of  the  most  popular 
comedies  of  the  age.  It  is  a  stock  favorite  in 
France  and  Germany,  and  has  been  played  in  Italy, 
England,  and  the  United  States  many  hundreds  of 
times.  With  its  comfortable  and  gratifying 
"  theme  " —  we  should  not  inquire  too  closely  into 
its  truth  —  plenty  of  sprightly  dialogue,  sentiment 
in  generous  doses,  a  touch  of  wistful  sadness  (in 
the  character  of  the  book-worm  Ernest)  the  play 
is  wide  in  its  appeal.     The  handsome  Andre  is 

182 


FLERS  AND  CAILLAVET 


married  to  the  charming  young  ingenue  Jacque- 
line, who  idolizes  her  husband.  She  learns  that 
he  has  been  unfaithful  to  her,  and  in  a  fit  of  jeal- 
ousy determines  to  follow  Rebellious  Susan  and 
Fran^illon  and  pay  Andre  back  in  his  own  coin. 
The  sympathetic  pedant  Ernest,  who  is  in  love 
with  Jacqueline,  is  the  man  she  chooses  as  the  in- 
strument of  her  vengeance.  She  writes  him  a  note 
teUing  him  to  expect  her  in  his  study  at  eight 
o'clock  in  the  evening.  The  first  part  of  the  third 
act,  in  Ernest's  study  on  the  appomted  evening,  is 
one  of  the  prettiest  and  most  amusing  scenes  these 
authors  have  ever  written.  The  awkward  prep- 
arations made  by  the  historian,  his  elation  at  being 
finally  loved  by  a  beautiful  woman,  the  timidity 
of  Jacqueline,  are  in  the  highest  vein  of  light 
comedy. 

Ernest.     Let  me  —  let  me  —  take  you  in  my  arms  — 

Jacqueline.    Yes  —  do ! 

Ernest.     Let  me  kiss  you! 

Jacqueline.     Yes,  yes,  do  that  —  do  everything  — 

Ernest.  My  dearest  —  what  joy,  what  happiness  — 
[He  kisses  her.} 

Jacqueline.  [Running  from.  him.'\  No,  no,  no,  no 
—  leave  me,  leave  me  — ! 

Ernest.     [Following  her.]     Jacqueline!     Jacqueline! 

Jacqueline.     No,  no,  don't! 

Ernest.     Jacqueline ! 

Jacqueline.  [Terrified.]  Leave  me!  [She  climbs 
to  the  top  of  the  step-ladder  which  leads  to  the  highest 
part  of  the  bookcase.] 

Ernest.  ...  I  had  imagined  a  different  sort  of  ren- 
dezvous from  this! 

Jacqueline.     [After  a  pause.]     Ernest  — 

Ernest.    What? 

183 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

Jacqueline.     Ernest,  I'm  dizzy. 

Ernest.     Come  down,  then  — 

Jacqueline.  I  can't.  I'd  rather  stay  here,  always  — 
But  don't  worry,  my  dear,  I'm  firmly  resolved.  I'll  be 
yours  —  but  don't  ask  me  to  budge  from  here !  I  could 
never  do  it. 

Ernest.     Come  down,  Jacqueline. 

Jacqueline.     Then  help  me. 

Ernest.     Now!     Close  your  eyes. 

Jacqueline.  There!  [She  descends  the  ladder-l 
Thanks. 

Ernest.     What  was  the  matter? 

Jacqueline.  I  can  hardly  explain  —  I  thought  it  was 
so  easy  to  deceive  my  husband.     Well,  it  isn't. 

Ernest.  .  .  .  We  must  proceed  methodically.  Now 
let's  have  a  bite  of  supper. 

Jacqueline.     Yes,  let's! 

Ernest.     [Leading  her  to  the  table.'\  .  .  .  Now  .  .  . 

Jacqueline.     Yes,  let's  have  supper. 

Ernest.     Ah,  Jacqueline! —     Some  pate? 

Jacqueline.  Thanks,  thanks  —  I'm  not  hungry. 
But  I'ni  so  thirsty  —  give  me  some  Champagne  —  lots  of 
Champagne ! 

Ernest.     Yes,  let's  drink  Champagne! 

Jacqueline.     This  dinner  is  charming! 

Ernest.  Supper!  Supper!  We  must  have  these 
often,  you  know  — 

Jacqueline.     Very  often. 

Ernest.     Then  we'll  meet  during  the  day. 

Jacqueline.     And  have  long  walks. 

Ernest.     Go  to  amusing  places  — 

Jacqueline.    Yes! 

Ernest.     Yes  —  visit  all  the  museums. 

Jacqueline.     All  the  museums! 

Ernest.  All  the  museums.  It  will  be  capital,  eh? 
Champagne  ? 

184 


FLERS  AND  CAILLAVET 


Jacqueline.     Yes,  let's  drink  Champagne! 

Ernest.    Let's. 

Jacqueline.  .  .  .  Now,  say  nice  things  to  me  — 
gay  things  — 

Ernest.     Oh,  yes :  I  love  you. 

Jacqueline.  No,  no  —  that's  not  gay.  .  .  .  Tell  me 
about   your   adventures  —  your   conquests  ?     You've   had 


some 


Ernest.  Indeed  I  have  —  I  should  think  so !  A  great 
many.     First,  at  college  — 

Jacqueline.     Then?    After? 

Ernest.     After,  of  course; 

Jacqueline.  Have  many  women  been  in  love  with 
you? 

Ernest.     I  should  think  so ! 

Jacqueline.  Have  you  any  little  souvenirs,  keep- 
sakes ? 

Ernest.     [Embarrassed.]     Well,  I  — 

Jacqueline.     You  haven't  —  ? 

Ernest.     Oh  yes,  I  have. 

Jacqueline.     Show  them  to  me,  it'll  be  so  amusing! 

Ernest.  If  you  like.  See,  this  file  is  full  of  them. 
[He  looks  at  the  inscription  on  a  letter-file,  then  brings 
the  file  from  the  cabinet.]     Here  is  my  past  —  relics  — 

Jacqueline.     .  .  .  Oh,  what  a  lot  of  letters! 

Ernest.  Yes,  full  of  tenderness  —  here  is  an  old 
bouquet  —  that  blonde  was  divine!  —  met  her  on  the 
beach  at  a  fashionable  watering-place. 

Jacqueline.     .  .  .  And  that  menu? 

Ernest.  Chic  lunch  at  the  Cafe  Anglais — charming 
comedienne,  she  was.  .  .  .  See  this  ribbon?  .  .  .  Just 
think  — 

Jacqueline.  [Laughing.]  That's  enough,  I  don't 
want  you  to  be  indiscreet.  Ernest,  I  want  to  drink  to 
your  earlier  love  affairs.  .  .  .  Now  I'll  tell. you  something: 
I'm  not  at  all  respectable.     I'm  not  a  bit  afraid  of  you 

185 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

now!  [He  takes  her  in  his  arms,  but  the  moment  his  face 
approaches  hers,  she  is  seized  with  sudden  fright,  and  slaps 
hipt.] 

Ernest.     [Retreating  a  step  or  twoS\     Oh! 

Jacqueline.  ...  I  didn't  mean  to.  .  .  .  This  is 
awful !  I  can  certainly  feel  the  effect  of  the  Champagne, 
but  I'm  still  respectable  —  I'm  hopeless  — ! 

Ernest.     And  I  don't  know  what  to  do! 

Jacqueline.     What  do  you  mean? 

Ernest.  I  mean,  I  mean  —  I've  proceeded  according 
to  every  known  method:  kindness,  persuasion,  tenderness 
—  my  method  was  irreproachable  —  well,  there  remains 
force.  .  .  . 

Jacqueline.  Ernest!  .  .  .  [He  goes  quickly  to  her, 
when  the  bell  ringsJ] 

They  are  interrupted;  Jacqueline's  friends  "  save  " 
her,  and  take  her  home.  Just  before  she  leaves, 
the  couple  are  left  alone  together  for  a  moment, 
and  Ernest  sees  that  he  has  been  the  victim  of  a 
little  conspiracy.  He  then  tells  Jacquehne  the 
truth  about  his  "  affairs." 

Jacqueline.     My  dear  friend,  how  can  I  thank  you? 

Ernest.  Give  me  that  rose.  [She  takes  a  rose  from 
her  corsage  and  gives  it  to  Aim.]  Thank  you!  See,  I'm 
going  to  put  it  in  the  file,  there,  with  the  relics  — 

Jacqueline.  What,  the  souvenir  of  this  deception, 
along  with  those  that  recall  so  many  happy  memories? 

Ernest.  Oh,  no !  I  can  tell  you  now  —  it's  not  true 
what  I  told  you  — 

Jacqueline.     But  all  those  letters  —  ? 

Ernest.     Those  letters?    Take  any  one  and  read  it  — 

Jacqueline.  [Reading.']  "  Dear  Monsieur :  Nev- 
er!"—  [Reading  another.]  "Excuse  me  for  not  com- 
ing yesterday  " —  [Reading  a  third.]  "  Sorry,  but  can't 
come  to-morrow  " — 

l86 


FLERS  AND  CAILLAVET 


Ernest.    They  never  came! 

Jacqueline.     And  you  keep  these? 

Ernest.     What  can  I  do?     I  keep  what  I  get! 

Jacqueline.     And  —  those  other  relics? 

Ernest.  The  others?  That  bouquet  I  wore  myself 
when  I  went  to  see  a  lady  who  would  never  consent  to  re- 
ceive me.  The  menu  from  the  Cafe  Anglais  —  I  ate 
alone  that  day,  with  an  empty  chair  facing  me.  That's 
all!  Lost  happiness!  So  you  see,  Jacqueline,  your  rose 
will  be  quite  at  home.  It  will  be  the  saddest  of  my 
memories,  but  not  the  least  beautiful.  [He  closes  the 
cabinet,  after  replacing  the  file.] 

Jacqueline.  [Giving  him  her  hand.]  Ah!  [Ten- 
derly.] How  I  might  have  loved  you  —  if  I  had!  My 
dear,  dear  friend !  [She  goes  out  slowly,  without  looking 
at  him.] 

Ernest.  Voila!  —  I  got  into  the  train,  but  it  never 
left  the  station  —  I  went  to  the  theater,  but  there  was  no 
performance  —  now  —  I'm  all  alone  — 

But  faithful  little  Sophie,  the  piano-teacher  who 
had  loved  him  all  along,  and  whom  he  had  un- 
consciously adored,  it  appears,  now  comes  to  him, 
and  everything  turns  out  happily. 

L'Eventail,  M.  de  Caillavet  confessed,  was  his 
favorite  among  all  the  Flers-Caillavet  plays. 
L'Eventail  contains  the  best-rounded  and  most  de- 
tailed character  study  which  has  yet  come  from 
these  delightful  writers;^  perhaps  this  explains 
their  preference  for  it. 

Giselle  Vaudreuil  is  a  born  coquette.  "  In  time 
of  danger,"  she  says,  "  a  man  ought  to  be  brave, 
a  woman  beautiful  —  that  is  our  courage  I  "     For 

^  This  was  written  before  the  production  of  Monsieur  Breton' 
neau,  in  the  Spring  of  1914,  of  which  M.  de  Flers  wrote  in  the 
Figaro  that  it  was  the  authors'  favorite. 

187 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

years  she  has  succeeded  in  life  by  the  exercise  of 
her  charm;  she  attains  every  end  by  cultivating 
the  art  of  capturing  men  —  and  then  passing  on  to 
the  next.  She  once  did  this  to  Francois  Trevoux, 
who  so  took  to  heart  her  cruelty  that  his  character 
was  definitely  fixed  into  a  misanthropic  mold. 
One  day  he  learns  that  his  friends,  Jacques  and 
Germaine  de  Landeve,  have  invited  an  old  friend 
of  their  youth  to  visit  them;  the  old  friend  is  of 
course  Giselle.  Frangois,  afraid  to  meet  the 
woman  who  had  jilted  him  six  years  previously, 
pleads  urgent  business  and  attempts  to  escape  to 
Paris  early  on  the  very  morning  when  Giselle  is  to 
arrive.  But  fate  and  the  ingenious  devices  of  the 
dramatists  cause  the  automobile  to  break  down, 
and  force  Frangois  to  meet  his  old  sweetheart. 
Complications  ensue  as  Giselle  is  drawn  into  a 
number  of  intrigues  —  other  people's  love-affairs. 
Frangois  vainly  struggles  against  the  re-birth  of 
his  passion  for  Giselle,  and  feels  that  he  is  playing 
a  losing  game,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  knows 
she  is  an  incurable  coquette.  Her  fan  —  the  sym- 
bol of  her  coquetry  —  bears  her  on  to  victory  as 
she  brings  back  erring  husbands  to  misunderstood 
wives.  But  she  too,  at  last,  feels  herself  drawn 
toward  the  long-suffering  man  she  once  wronged. 
At  last  Francois,  unable  to  bear  the  torture  of  her 
presence,  makes  up  his  mind  to  leave: 

Franqois.     I  have  come  to  say  good-by  —  I'm  going, 
this  time  — 

Giselle.     No,  Frangois,  you  are  not  going  —  at  least, 
not  alone.     My  friends,  I  present  to  you  my  fiance. 

Francois.     No,    don't    believe    her.     I    thank    you, 
Madame,  but  I  cannot  accept  charity! 

l88 


FLERS  AND  CAILLAVET 


Jacques.     You  see! 

Giselle.  Very  well.  But  I  wish  Jacques  to  know  the 
whole  truth,  and  I  don't  think  Monsieur  Trevoux  will 
deny  it:     I  present  you  to  my  lover! 

Franqois.     Giselle ! 

Giselle.  Yes,  yes!  I  humbly  confess  it.  [She  looks 
at  Frangois.]  I  tried  so  hard  to  struggle  against  love, 
but  it  was  stronger  than  I  —  I  am  happy  to  acknowledge 
my  defeat.  .  .  .  Franqois,  a  conquered  soldier  breaks  his 
sword  before  giving  it  up  to  his  victor.  [She  breaks  her 
fan.^  Here  is  mine!  ...  I  give  it  to  my  husband.  I 
shall  never  have  another  fan  —  I  promise  that. 

Francois.  I  don't  know  what  to  say  —  I'm  so 
happy — !  Well,  now  that  I'm  the  master,  just  you  see 
how  I'll  obey  — 

Giselle.     My  dearest  — 

Pierre.  [Bringing  forward  a  package.}  This  just 
arrived  from  Paris  for  Madame  Vaudreuil. 

Giselle.     Oh,  yes  —  I  know  what  it  is. 

Germaine.     What  ? 

Giselle.    A  fan. 

Francois.    Already  ? 

And  the  curtain  falls,  not  on  a  pleasantly  false 
sentimental  All's  Well,  but  with  a  true  ring:  we 
know  Giselle  will  carry  the  fan  to  her  grave. 

Our  authors  have  won  their  greatest  successes 
of  late  in  the  field  of  satire.  Three  of  their  finest 
works  are  political  farces :  Le  Bois  sacre,  Le  Rot, 
and  L' Habit  vert.  The  first  —  known  in  the 
United  States  in  an  adaptation  under  the  title  of 
Decorating  Clementine  —  ridicules  the  craze  for 
"decorations"  in  France;  it  is  of  more  local  in- 
terest than  the  two  works  which  followed  it. 

Le  Rot  is  the  most  uproarious  of  the  Flers- 
Caillavet  satires.     Imagine,  they  tell  us,  the  land 

189 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

of  the  Marseillaise  turned  topsy-turvy  by  the  ar- 
rival of  a  royal  personage !  Imagine  that  per- 
sonage a  boulevardier  among  boulevardiers  — 
King  Manoel  of  Portugal  must  have  been  the 
original  —  picture  him  shattering  the  ideals  of  a 
staunch  Socialist,  making  love  to  his  wife,  and 
turning  the  President  and  his  Cabinet  into  a  ridicu- 
lous pack  of  children!  Paris  is  his  playground. 
Received  everywhere  with  acclamations  and  honor, 
no  wonder  he  exults  and  waxes  enthusiastic,  cry- 
ing *'  Que  j'aime  la  France!  "  It  is  unjust  to  re- 
duce to  the  cold  outline  here  necessary  the  not  at 
all  respectable  story  of  Le  Roi;  I  can,  however, 
with  impunity  transcribe  two  scenes.  Therese, 
Bourdier's  mistress,  has  received  the  King  in  her 
apartment  at  a  time  when  her  lover  —  the  Social- 
ist leader  —  is  safely  out  of  the  way.  But  he  In- 
opportunely, as  lovers  and  husbands  in  plays  will, 
appears,  only  to  find  the  King's  hat  in  the  drawing- 
room.  Therese  comes  to  Bourdier  and  tries  to  ex- 
plain. 

BouRDiER.  The  name  of  that  man,  that  —  ?  I  must 
know !     [  .  .  .  The  King  appears,  smiling  complacently. '\ 

Therese.  [Introducing  the  two  men.]  His  Majesty 
the  King  of  Ardagne  —  Monsieur  Bourdier,  a  friend  of 
mine. 

Bourdier.  [Astonished.]  Ah!  [There  is  a  mo- 
ment's embarrassment.] 

The  King.     How  are  you? 

Bourdier.     [Furiously.]     Sire ! 

Therese.  Do  you  know  what  His  Majesty  conde- 
scended to  say  the  moment  you  arrived?  Well,  he  ex- 
pressed a  desire  to  make  your  acquaintance. 

Bourdier.     [Softening.]     Sire  1 

190 


FLERS  AND  CAILLAVET 


The  King.  Yes,  I  was  looking  forward  to  that  privi- 
lege. In  what  way  can  I  be  of  service  to  you,  my  dear 
Bourdier? 

BouRDiER.     [Diminuendo.]     Sire! 

Therese.  His  Majesty  was  kind  enough  to  think  of 
allowing  you  to  invite  him  to  a  grand  hunt  and  dinner 
party  at  your  Chateau  at  Gourville. 

Bourdier.     [Almost  meekly. '\     Sire! 

Therese.  And  further:  His  Majesty,  who  has  only 
one  more  day  to  dispose  of  .  .  .  offers  you  all  of  next  Sun- 
day, the  day  he  originally  intended  to  spend  with  the  Mar- 
quis de  Charnarande. 

Bourdier.     [Bowing,  vastly  pleased.]     Sire! 

The  King.  Don't  thank  me!  Don't!  —  And  now, 
good-by  —  till  Sunday !  I  shall  be  most  pleased  to  see 
you  then.  Don't  come  to  the  door  —  I  couldn't  think  of 
letting  you — !     Good-by,  dear  old  Bourdier! 

Bourdier.  Sire.  [The  King  extends  his  hand  to 
Bourdier;  Bourdier  hesitates,  not  knowing  whether  to  kiss 
it  or  shake  it.] 

The  King.  Shake!  One  doesn't  shake  kings'  hands 
—  in  private ! 

Therese.  Sire  —  pardon  him.  Monsieur  Bourdier 
isn't  well  acquainted  with  the  forms  —  he  is  a  Socialist  — 

The  King.    So  am  I ! 

The  next  act  is  at  the  Chateau  on  the  following 
Sunday.  The  King  continues  to  make  love  to 
Therese.  He  has  added  to  his  conquests,  mean- 
time, Bourdier's  own  wife,  Marthe,  and  is  most 
assiduous.  The  act  closes  with  the  King's  very 
amusing  double-meaning  compliment:  "  Oh,  how 
I  love  France !  "  In  the  final  act  Marthe  induces 
the  King  to  sign  a  treaty  which  the  country  has  for 
some  time,  without  success,  been  trying  to  make. 
Marthe  and  the  King  are  together: 


191 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

The  King.     .  .  .  Here ! 

Marthe.     What  is  it? 

The  King.  A  worthy  souvenir  —  a  great  present. 
Do  you  recognize  this  document? 

Marthe.     No. 

The  King.  The  famous  commerce  treaty  which  I  have 
up  to  this  moment  refused  to  sign,  because  it  is  not  par- 
ticularly advantageous  to  my  brother  the  King  of 
Moldavie.  It  is  worth  some  millions  to  your  country. 
For  Youyou's  sake  [Marthe's  pet  name  before  she  was 
married^  I  make  a  present  of  this  to  France. 

Marthe.    What! 

The  King.  Come  here.  [He  sits  down.^  Take  my 
big  hand  in  yours,  darling,  and  make  me  sign  my  name. 

Marthe.     I  don't  dare. 

The  King.     It  is  my  wish. 

Marthe.  [Obeying.]  J-E-A-N —  Shall  I  put  your 
number  down  after  the  name? 

The  King.  No  number.  [He  hands  her  the  docu- 
ment.] Here's  your  present.  Now  you're  down  in  his- 
tory. 

Marthe.  Oh,  I'm  all  trembling.  I  can't  thank  you! 
It  would  be  ridiculous  — 

Bourdier  comes  in  together  with  the  President  of 
the  Republic.  The  King  shows  the  latter  the 
signed  treaty. 

The  King.     .  .  .  Here,  Monsieur  le  President. 

The  President.  [Looking  at  the  treaty.]  Oh! 
[He  passes  it  to  Bourdier.] 

Bourdier.     Ah!  .  .  . 

The  King.  Messieurs,  dear  Bourdier  here  is  giving 
you  a  splendid  example.  He  has  shown  you  how,  in  your 
democratic  country,  a  man  can  by  his  own  merit,  rise  to 
be  of  the  greatest  service  to  the  state. 

Bourdier.    Yes,  Sire;  nowadays,  we  are  the  State! 
192 


FLERS  AND  CAILLAVET 


The  King.  Good!  [The  hunting  horns  are  heard  in 
the  distance.]     The  hunt,  Messieurs! 

The  daring  of  the  plot,  the  breezy,  ample,  esprit 
gaulois  are  far  enough  from  the  quiet  sentiment 
of  L' Amour  veille  and  L'Eventail.  The  authors 
have  entered  a  new  field,  in  which  they  are  destined 
to  remain  the  masters,  and  win  further  laurels. 
The  occasional  vulgarity  of  Le  Rot  is  perhaps  nec- 
essary, owing  to  the  theme.  To  Anglo-Saxon 
minds  there  appears  no  excuse  for  many  scenes  in 
which  sensuality  per  se  is  exploited  for  purely  comic 
effect.  Yet  the  animalspiritsof  L^i^oigive  way  in 
the  next  play,  L' Habit  vert,  to  rollicking  farce  and 
boisterousness,  which  seem  almost  out  of  place  in  a 
Flers  and  Caillavet  play.  Yet  here  again  so 
funny  is  the  situation  and  so  clever  the  dialogue 
that  we  are  forced  to  accept  the  whole  as  a  huge 
joke.  The  American  woman  who  makes  quite 
unprintable  "  breaks,"  and  whose  affairs  might 
well  scandalize  a  newspaper  reporter,  is  in  spite 
of  everything  one  of  the  most  amusing  figures  in 
contemporary  comedy. 

L'Habit  vert  is  a  satire  on  the  great  and  august 
Academy  —  of  which  the  two  marquis'  are  not  yet 
members.  The  Count  Hubert  de  Latour-Latour 
accidentally  finds  himself  at  the  chateau  of  the 
Duke  and  Duchess  de  Maulevrier.  The  Duchess, 
an  American,  is  at  once  attracted  to  the  young 
noble. 

Hubert.  Ah,  Madame  la  duchesse,  thank  you!  You 
have  a  great  heart. 

Duchess.  Yes,  I  have  a  great  heart  —  also  a  great 
park.     I  walk  in  it  every  day.  .  .  .  This  evening  I  shall  be 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

there,  after  dinner.  Come  to  the  end  of  the  long  alley  — 
we'll  converse  about  the  poetry  of  love,  sitting  on  a 
clematis-covered  bench. 

Hubert.  Oh,  Madame  la  duchesse,  what  an  honor  — 
and  what  a  joy !  .  .  . 

Duchess.  Hush,  here  comes  my  husband  the  Duke! 
[Enter  the  Duke.~\  Dearest,  I  should  like  to  introduce 
Monsieur  le  comte  Hubert  de  Latour  — 

Duke.     [Bowing  coldly.^     I  am  very  well! 

Hubert.     [Aside  to  the  Duchess.^     Latour-Latour  — 

Duchess.    That's  what  I  said  — 

Hubert.     No,  twice! 

Duchess.  Oh  yes,  double!  Monsieur  le  comte  de 
Latour-Latour  — 

Duke.  [Smiling.'\  That  is  very  different.  De- 
lighted, I  am  sure,  to  make  your  acquaintance.  I  know  of 
your  family. 

Later,  Hubert  begins  to  make  love  to  the  Duchess. 
He  takes  her  hand  in  his  and  kneels  at  her  feet. 
Then  the  Duke  surprises  them.  With  the  Duke 
is  Brigitte,  the  stenographer  who  is  helping  Hubert 
with  his  book  on  his  ancestors. 

Duke.     Oh ! 

Duchess  fln</ Hubert.    Oh! 

Brigitte.     Oh ! 

Hubert.  [Quickly  rising.^  Monsieur  le  due !  How 
are  you? 

Duke.  [Violently. '\  Not  well.  Monsieur!  As  for 
you,  Madame,  will  you  kindly  tell  me  what  was  the  sig- 
nificance of  that  indecent  posture  you  were  in  when  I 
entered  ? 

Duchess.  [Speaking  English.^  Oh,  I  can't  answer. 
...  I'm  awfully  frightened.  You  have  such  a  voice  and 
such  a  face!     What  a  dreadful  thing!     This  man  seems 

194 


FLERS  AND  CAILLAVET 


to  be  quite  out  of  temper.  Oh,  dear  me,  dear  me,  dear 
me  — 

Hubert.  I  hope.  Monsieur  le  due,  that  this  explana- 
tion will  suffice  ? 

Duke.  [Exasperated. '^  No,  Monsieur:  I  don't  un- 
derstand English. 

Hubert.     [With  dignity S\     Neither  do  I. 

Duke.      [fVith  a  menace.]     Then,  Monsieur  — ! 

Brigitte.  [Stepping  between  the  men,]  Let  me 
translate.  Monsieur  le  due! 

Duke.     Proceed ! 

Brigitte.  .  .  .  When  you  came  in.  Monsieur  le  due, 
Monsieur  le  comte  de  Latour-Latour  was  at  the  feet  of 
Madame  la  duchesse  —  you  know,  he  was  at  her  feet, 
wasn't  he? 

Duke.     Of  course !     And  then  ?     Then  ? 

Brigitte.  Then  ?  He  was  begging  her  for  something. 
That  was  evident,  was  it  not  ? 

Duke.     Of  course,  but  for  what? 

Brigitte.     It  was  to  ask  you  — 

Duke.     For  what? 

Brigitte.  [Still  hesitating.]  That  you  propose  him 
as  a  candidate  — 

Duke.     For  what? 

Brigitte.     For  the  French  Academy! 

Duke.     For  the  French  Academy ! 

Duchess.     [Astonished.]     The  French  Academy? 

Duke.     Is  that  true? 

Hubert.  [Looking  at  the  Duchess,  who  is  dumbly 
supplicating  him  to  say  yes.]     It  is. 

Duke.     [Bowing.]     Why  not  say  so  at  once  ? 

Duchess.  Because  you  came  in  so  abruptly  that  I  was 
frozen  with  fear !     Oh ! 

Duke.  [To  the  Duchess.]  Pardon  me,  dear,  but 
really,  when  I  saw  a  man  at  your  feet,  I  — 

Hubert.     [With  an  air  of  nobility.]     I  can  readily 


195 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

understand  your  surprise,  Monsieur  le  due;  I  sympathize 
with  it.  But  I  come  of  a  family  no  member  of  which 
during  eight  hundred  years  ever  asked  a  favor  of  a  lady 
without  kneeling  to  her  for  it. 

Duke.  Well  spoken,  Monsieur!  For  ten  centuries 
my  own  family  has  ever  been  ready  with  the  bended  knee: 
habit  acquired  from  constant  prayer,  doubtless.  Give  me 
your  hand ! 

Hubert.     Willingly. 

Hubert  must  now  in  honor  bound  present  himself 
for  election  to  the  French  Academy.  But  he 
rightly  feels  that  he  has  no  business  there,  and  he 
has  no  desire  to  be  elected.  "  But,"  says  the 
Duke,  "  everything  marks  you  out  as  the  ideal 
Academician:  your  preoccupation  with  good  solid 
ideas,  your  obscurity,  the  insignificance  of  your 
literary  work,  your  rather  melancholy  disposi- 
tion—" 

The  third  act  is  very  daring:  the  scene  Is  laid 
beneath  the  sacred  Cupola  in  the  Institute,  where 
the  Immortals  congregate,  and  the  stage  represents 
the  Amphitheater.  It  is  the  day  on  which  Hubert, 
elected  by  an  overwhelming  majority,  is  to  make 
the  Discourse  on  his  Reception  and  the  Duke  his 
reply  to  Hubert.  The  Duchess  is  deeply  con- 
cerned over  the  ceremony,  because  she  has  some- 
where mislaid  a  rather  compromising  letter  to 
Hubert.  The  seance  begins,  Hubert  makes  his 
speech,  and  the  Duke  rises  to  make  his  "  Reply  " : 

Duke.  Monsieur  —  after  heartily  joining  in  the 
demonstrations  of  approval  which  greeted  your  Address, 
I  am  happy  to  remark  that  this  occasion  is  a  particularly 
gratifying  one  for  me ;  it  is  a  day  which  stands  out  among 

196 


FLERS  AND  CAILLAVET 


all  others.  And  how  could  it  be  otherwise,  Monsieur? 
For  the  feeling  of  friendship  in  my  bosom  is  so  well  in 
accord  with  the  similar  sentiment  of  esteem  in  which  I  hold 
you!  My  thoughts  are  drawn  toward  the  various  affec- 
tionate bonds  which  unite  us.  I  am  urged  to  quote  what 
Epictetus  said  to  his  favorite  disciple:  "  My  loving  dearie 
Hubert—"! 

[He  has  turned  a  page,  and  finds  between  his  hands  a  large 
sheet  of  blue  paper.  With  great  dignity  and  empha- 
sis he  repeats:  "My  loving  dearie  Hubert."  The 
audience  rises  in  confusion.  The  Duke  lays  down  his 
manuscript,  and  passes  his  hand  over  his  forehead.  .  .  .] 
Duchess.     My  letter! 

The  audience  is  dismissed  and  the  ceremony  post- 
poned. But  the  possibility  of  a  public  scandal  is 
so  terrible  to  contemplate,  that  the  Duke  is  per- 
suaded to  resume  the  seance  and  save  the  day. 
The  audience  is  recalled,  and  the  Duke's  Discourse 
recommenced: 

...  as  Epictetus  said  to  one  of  his  favorite  disciples: 
"  You  are  indeed  favored  of  the  gods,  loved  son  of  the 
Muses!  You  are  indeed  a  happy  man!  My  hand  will 
crown  you  with  flowers!  [As  he  continues,  the  curtain 
falls.'] 

The  last  act  —  rather  an  anticlimax  —  straightens 
matters  out:  Hubert  is  married  off  to  Brigitte, 
the  faithful  sweetheart,  just  as  Ernest  was  to  the 
little  music  teacher  in  L  Amour  veille. 

This  summary  of  the  principal  plays  of  Flers 
and  Caillavet  could  scarcely  be  other  than  the 
faintest  approximation  to  the  vividness  with  which 
these  two  paint  their  characters  and  round  out 

197 


CONTEMPORARY  FRENCH  DRAMATISTS 

their  ingenious  and  invariably  amusing  situations. 
Geniality,  light-hearted  satire,  impudence,  in- 
souciance, are  their  gifts.  Flers  and  Caillavet 
are  to  be  seen  —  not  analyzed. 


198 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  following  works  contain  references  to  practically 
all  the  dramatists  considered  in  the  present  volume;  no 
special  mention  of  these  works  will  be  made  under  partic- 
ular headings. 

Emile  de  St.  Auban,  L'Idee  soctale  au  theatre.      (Stock.) 
Frangois    Veuillot,     Les    Predicateurs    de     la    scene. 

( Retaux. ) 
Georges  Pelissier,  Etudes  de  litterature  contemporaine 

(Perrin.) 
Rene  Doumic,  Les  Jeunes.      (Perrin.) 
Rene    Doumic,    Essais    sur    le    theatre    contemporain. 

(Perrin.) 
Rene  Doumic,  De  Scribe  a  Ibsen.     (Perrin.) 
Rene  Doumic,  Le  Theatre  nouveau.      (Perrin.) 
A.-E.  Sorel,  Essais  de  psychologic  moderne.     (Sansot.) 
Antoine  Benoist,  Le   Theatre  d'aujourd'hui.      (Societe 

Frangaise  d'imprimerie  et  de  librairie.) 
Paul  Flat,  Figures  du  theatre  contemporain.      (Sansot.) 
Emile  Zola,  Le  Theatre  naturaliste.      (Charpentier.) 
Hiram    Kelly    Moderwell,    The    Theater   of    To-day. 

(Lane.) 
Laurence  Jerrold,  The  Real  France.      (Lane.) 
Frank  Wadleigh  Chandler,  Aspects  of  Modern  Drama. 

(Macmillan.) 
Archibald  Henderson,  The  Changing  Drama.      (Holt.) 
Charlton  Andrews,  The  Drama  To-day.     (Lippincott.) 
Anthologie  du  theatre  frangais  contemporain.     (Dela- 

grave.) 
Ludwig  Lewisohn,  The  Modern  Drama.     (Huebsch.) 
199 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Ferdinand  Brunetiere,  The  Law  of  the  Drama.  (Co- 
lumbia University.) 

Emma  Goldmann,  The  Social  Significance  of  the  Mod- 
ern Drama.     (Badger.) 

Collected  Criticism: 

Francisque  Sarcey,  Quarante  ans  de  theatre.     (Les  An- 

nales. ) 
Jules  Lemaitrc,  Impressions  de  theatre.     (Societe  Fran- 

gaise. ) 
Emile  Faguet,  Propos  de  theatre.     (Societe  Franqaise.) 
J.    Ernest-Charles,    Les    Samedis    litteraires.      (Ollen- 
dorff.) 
Edmond   Stoullig  et  Edouard   Noel,   Les  Annales  du 

theatre  et  de  la  musique.     (Ollendorff.) 
Catulle  Mendes,  L'Art  au  theatre.     (Charpentier.) 
Leon  Blum,  Au  Theatre.     (Ollendorff.) 
Henry  Bordeaux,  La  Vie  au  theatre.     (Pilon.) 
Henry  Bidou,  L'Annee  dramatique.      (Hachette.) 
Adolphe  Brisson,  Le  Theatre.     (Les  Annales.) 

THE  THEATRE  LIBRE 

Adolphe    Thalasso,    Le    Theatre   Libre.     (Mercure    de 

France. ) 
Jean  JuUien,  Le  Theatre  vivant.      (Charpentier.) 
Augustin  Filon,  De  Dumas  a  Rostand.     (Colin.)     Trans- 
lated as  Modern  French  Drama,  by  Janet  E.  Hogarth. 
(Chapman  and  Hall,  London.) 
Anonymous,  Le  Theatre  Libre.      (Paris,   1 890.) 
Barrett    H.    Clark,    Four   Plays    of    the   Free    Theater. 
(Translations  of  Curel's  The  Fossils,  Jullien's  The 
Serenade,  Porto-Riche's  Fran^oise'  Luck,  and  Ancey's 
The  Dupe;  translated  with  an  introduction  by  Barrett 
H.  Clark,  and  a  preface  by  Brieux.    Stewart  &  Kidd.) 
George  Moore,  Impressions  and  Opinions.     (Brentano.) 
Archibald  Henderson,  The  Changing  Drama.     (Holt.) 

200 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Magazines: 

Saturday  Review,  vol.  Ixxix  (p.  213)  ;  International,  vol. 
iii  (p.  511);  Critic,  vol.  xl  (p.  517);  Bellman, 
27  Feb.,  1915. 


FRANCOIS  DE  CUREL 

List  of  Plays  : 
L'Envers  d'une  sainte 1892 

Translated    by    Barrett    H.     Clark.     (Doubleday, 

Page,  in  The  Drama  League  Series) 
L'Invitee    1893 

(The  Guest) 
L'Amour  brode 1 893 

(Love  Embellishes) 
La  Figurante 1 896 

(The  Ballet  Dancer) 
Le  Repas  du  lion 1898 

(The  Lion's  Feast) 
La  Nouvelle  idole 1899 

(The  New  Idol) 
Les  Fossiles   1900 

Translated  as  The  Fossils,  in  Four  Plays  of  the 

Free  Theater 
La  Fille  sauvage 1902 

(The  Girl  Savage) 
Le  Coup  d'aile 1906 

Translated  as  The  Beat  of  the  Wing  by  Alice 

Van  Kaathoven,  Poet  Lore,  vol.  xx.  No.  5 
La  Danse  devant  le  miroir 19 14 

(The  Dance  Before  the  Mirror) 

References: 
Adolphe  Brisson,  Portraits  intimes.  5eme  Serie.      (Colin.) 
Gabriel  Trarieux,  La  Lanterne  de  Diogene.      (Librairie 
Moliere.) 

201 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Roger  Le  Brun,  Francois  de  Curel.      (Sansot.) 
Barrett    H.    Clark,    Four   Plays    of   the   Free    Theater. 
(Stewart  and  Kidd.) 

Magazines  : 
Contemporary  Review,  vol.  bcxxiv  (p.  209)  ;  Forum,  Jan., 
1915- 

EUGENE  BRIEUX 
Plays  : 
Bernard    Palissy.     (In    collaboration    with    Gaston 

Salandri) 1880 

Le  Bureau  des  divorces.     (With  Gaston  Salandri) . .  1880 

(The  Divorce  Office) 
Menages  d'artistes 1890 

(Artists'  Families) 
La  Fille  de  Durame 1890 

(Durame's  Daughter) 

M.  de  Reboval 1892 

Blanchette    1892 

Translated  by  Frederick  Eisemann,  in  Blanchette 

and  the  Escape.     (Luce) 
La  Couvee 1 893 

(The  Brood) 
L'Engrenage    1894 

(The  Machine) 
La  Rose  bleue 1895 

(The  Blue  Rose) 
Les  Bienfaiteurs 1896 

(The  Philanthropists) 
L'Evasion 1896 

Translated  as  The  Escape  in  Blanchette  and  The 

Escape.     (Luce) 
Les  Trois  Filles  de  M.  Dupont 1897 

Translated  as  The  Three  Daughters  of  M.  Du- 
pont, by  St.  John  Hankin,  in  Three  Plays  by 

Brieux.     (Brentano) 

202 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


L'Ecole  des  Belles-Meres 1898 

Translated  as  The  School  for  Mothers-in-Law 

in  The  Smart  Set,  July,  1913 
Resultat  des  courses ! 1898 

(Racing  Results!) 
Le  Berceau 1898 

(The  Cradle) 
La  Robe  rouge 1900 

Translated  as  The  Red  Robe  by  F.  O.  Reed  in 

Chief    Contemporary    Dramatists     (Houghton, 

Mifflin),  and  in  second  volume  of  Brieux  plays 

(Brentano) 
Les   Remplagantes 1 901 

(The  Substitutes) 
Les  Avaries    1902 

Translated  as  Damaged  Goods  by  John  Pollock 

in  Three  Plays  by  Brieux  (Brentano) 
La  Petite  Amie 1902 

(The  "Little  Friend") 
Maternite    ( 1st  version) 1903 

Translated  as  Maternity  by  Mrs.  Bernard  Shaw 

in  Three  Plays  by  Brieux.     (Brentano) 
La      Deserteuse.     (In     collaboration     with     Jean 

Sigaux) 1904 

(The  Woman  who  Deserted) 
L' Armature.     (After  Paul   Hervieu's  novel  of  the 

same  name)    1905 

(The  Armature) 
Les  Hannetons    1906 

(The  May-Beetles) 
La  Frangaise  1907 

(The  Frenchwoman) 

Simone    ' ■ 1908 

Suzette   1909 

La  Foi  1909 

Translated  as  Faith.     (Brentano) 
203 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


La  Femme  seule 1912 

Translated   as  Woman  on  her  Own.     (Bren- 
tano) 

Le  Bourgeois  aux  Champs 1914 

(The  Bourgeois  in  the  Country) 

References: 
Adrlen  Bertrand,  E.  Bricux.     (Sansot.) 
Gabriel  Trarieux,  La  Lanterne  de  Diogene.     (Librairie 

Moliere.) 
P.  V.  Thomas,  The  Plays  of  Eugene  Brieux.     (Luce.) 
Mrs.  Bernard  Shaw,  preface  to  single  volume  edition  of 

Damaged  Goods.      (Fifield.) 
Emma  Goldmann,  The  Social  Significance  of  the  Modern 

Drama.     (Badger.) 
Barrett  H.  Clark,   The  Continental  Drama  of   To-day. 

(Holt.) 
Barrett    H.    Clark,    Four   Plays    of    the    Free    Theater. 

(Stewart  and  Kidd.) 

See  introductions  to  the  four  volumes  of  translations 

above  referred  to. 

Magazines  : 
Atlantic,  vol.  xc.    (p.   79)  ;  Contemporary  Review,  vol. 
Ixxxi  (p.  343)  ;  Forum,  vol.  xliii  (p.  678)  ;  Nation, 
vol.  xciii  (p.   149)  ;  Drama,  August,  1913;  Interna- 
tional, vol.  viii  (p.  156). 

GEORGES  DE  PORTO-RICHE 
Plays  : 

Le  Vertige 1 873 

(Vertigo) 

Un  Drame  sous  Philippe  II 1875 

(A  Drama  Under  Philip  II) 

Les  Deux  Fautes 1 879 

(The  Two  Faults) 

Vanina    1879 

204 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

La  Chance  de  Frangoise 1889 

Translated  by  Barrett  H.  Clark  as  Frangoi'se' 

Luck    in    Four    Plays    of    the    Free    Theater. 

(Stewart  and  Kidd) 
L'lnfidele     1890 

(The  Unfaithful  One) 
Amoureuse   1891 

(The  Loving  Woman) 
Le  Passe   1898 

(The  Past) 
Les  Malefilatre   1904 

(The  Malefilatre  Family) 
Le  Vieil  Homme 191 1 

(The  Old  Man) 
Zubiri     1912 

References: 
Augustin  Filon,  Modern  French  Drama.     (Chapman  & 

Hall.) 
Barrett    H.    Clark,    Four   Plays   of   the   Free    Theater. 

(Stewart  and  Kidd.) 
Claude  R.  Marx,  G.  de  Porto-Riche.     (Sansot.) 
Adolphe  Brisson,  Pointes  seches.     (Colin.) 
J.  Ernest-Charles,  Essais  critiques.     (Ollendorff.) 
J.  Ernest-Charles,  Le  Theatre  des  pokes.     (Ollendorff.) 

PAUL  HERVIEU 
Plays : 

Point  de  Lendemain '. 1890 

(Adapted  from  a  story  by  Vivant  Denon.  A 
proverbial  expression  meaning  "  Without  after- 
thought.") 

Les  Paroles  Restent 1892 

(Words  Remain) 

Les  Tenailles 1 895 

Translated  as  In  Chains  by  Ysidor  Asckenasy, 
Poet  Lore,  1909. 

205 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


La  Loi  de  I'homme 1897 

(Man's  Law) 

L'Enigme     igoi 

(The  Enigma) 
La  Course  du  Flambeau 1901 

(The  Passing  of  the  Torch) 

Theroigne  de  Mericourt 1902 

Le  Dedale  1903 

Translated   as  The   Labyrinth   by   Barrett   H. 

Clark  and  Lander  MacClintock.     (Huebsch.) 
Le  Reveil 1 905 

(The  Awakening) 
Modestie    1908 

Translated  as  Modesty  by  Barrett  H.   Clark. 

(French,  New  York.) 
Connais-toi   1909 

Translated  as  Know  Thyself  by  Barry  Cerf  in 

Chief  Contemporary  Dramatists. 

Bagatelle    1912 

Le  Destin  est  Maitre  (Destiny  is  Master) 1914 

References: 
Adolphe  Brisson,  Pointes  seches.     (Colin.) 
Henry  Malherbe,  Paul  Hervieu.     (Sansot.) 
Abel  Hermant,  Essais  de  critique.      (Grasset.) 
Paul  Abram,  Notes  de  critique.      (Sansot.) 
James  Huneker,  Iconoclasts.      (Scribner.) 
Barrett  H.  Clark,   The  Continental  Drama  of  To-day. 

(Holt.) 
William  Archer,  Playmaking.     (Small,  Maynard.) 
Arthur  Symons,  Plays,  Acting  and  Music.      (Dutton.) 
J.  Ernest-Charles,  Essais  critiques.      (Ollendorff.) 
Introduction  to  translation  of  The  Labyrinth  above  re- 
ferred to. 

Magazines: 
International  Review,  vol.  vii  (p.  265)  ;  Critic,  vol.  xxxvii 
(p.  158) ;  New  Republic,  vol.  i.  No.  i. 
206 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


HENRI  LAVEDAN 
Plays  : 
Une  Famille 1891 

(One  Family) 
Le  Prince  d'Aurec 1892 

Translated  as  The  Prince  d'Aurec,  by  Barrett 

H.   Clark,   in  Three   Modern   Plays  from  the 

French.     (Holt.) 
Critique  du  Prince  d'Aurec 1892 

(Criticism  on  the  Prince  d'Aurec) 
Les  Deux  Noblesses 1894 

(The  Two  Nobilities) 
Viveurs !   1 895 

(Sports!) 

Catherine    1 898 

Le  Nouveau  Jeu 1 898 

(The  Latest  Fad) 
Le  Vieux  marcheur 1899 

(The  Old  Man-about-town) 
Les  Medicis 1901 

(The  Medici) 
Le  Marquis  de  Priola 1902 

(The  Marquis  de  Priola) 
Varennes.     (In  collaboration  with  G.  Lenotre) .  . .  1904 
Le  Duel 1905 

(The  Duel) 
Sire 1909 

(Sire) 
Le  Gout  du  Vice 191 1 

(The  Taste  for  Vice) 
Servir   19 13 

(To  Serve) 
La  Chienne  du  Roi 1913 

(The  King's  Bitch) 
Petard    1914 


207 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


References: 

Barrett  H.  Clark,   The  Continental  Drama  of  To-day, 

(Holt.) 
Barrett  H.  Clark,  introduction  to  Three  Modern  Plays 

From  the  French.     (Holt.) 

MAURICE  DONNAY 

Lysistrata  1892 

Pension  de  f amille 1 894 

(Family  Hotel) 
Amants     1895 

Translated  as  Lovers  by  Barrett  H.  Clark  in 

Three   Plays   by    Donnay    (Kennerley,    1915). 
La  Douloureuse 1 897 

(Paying  the  Bill) 
L'Affranchie     1898 

Translated  as  The  Free  Woman  by  Barrett  H. 

Clark    in   Three    Plays    by    Donnay    (Kenner- 
ley, 1915). 

Georgette  Lemeunier    1898 

Le  Torrent   1 899 

(The  Torrent) 
Education  de  Prince 1900 

(Prince's  Education) 
La  Clairiere.     (In  collaboration  with  L.  Descaves) .  1900 

(The  Clearing) 
La  Bascule 1901 

(The  Seesaw) 
L'Autre  Danger   1902 

Translated  as  The  Other  Danger  by  Charlotte 

Tenney  David   in   The  Drama,  August,   1913, 

and   later   in   Three   Modern    Plays   from   the 

French.     (Holt.) 
Le  Retour  de  Jerusalem 1903 

(The  Return  from  Jerusalem) 
L'Escalade    1904 

(The  Escalade) 

208 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Oiseaux  de  passage.     (With  L.  Descaves) 1904 

(Birds  of  Passage) 
Paraitre    1906 

(To  Appear) 
La  Patronne    1908 

(Untranslatable  colloquial  expression) 
Le  Menage  de  Moliere 1912 

(Moliere's  Family) 
Les    Eclaireuses 19 13 

(The  Emancipated  Women) 

References: 
Roger  Le  Brun,  Maurice  Donnay.      (Sansot.) 
Barrett  H.  Clark,   The  Continental  Drama  of  To-day. 

(Holt.) 
Barrett  H.  Clark,  Three  Modern  Plays  from  the  French. 

(Holt.) 

Preface    to    Three    Plays    by    Donnay    (Kennerley, 

1915). 
Adrien  Chevalier,  Etudes  litteraires.     (Sansot.) 
Paul  Bourget,  Pages  de  critique  et  de  doctrine.      (Plon.) 

Magazines: 
The  Drama,  August,  191 3;  Current  Literature,  vol.  xliv 
(p.  279). 

EDMOND  ROSTAND 
Plays  : 
Le  Gant  rouge 1 888 

(The  Red  Glove) 

Not  published. 
Les  Deux  Pierrots 1891 

(The  Two  Pierrots) 

Not  published. 
Les  Romanesques 1 894 

Translated  as  The  Romancers  by  Mary  Hendee 

(Doubleday,      Page,      1899),     as     the     same, 

by  Barrett  H.  Clark  (French,  New  York),  and 
209 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


as  The  Fantasticks,  by  George  Fleming  ( Heine- 

mann,  London). 
La  Princesse  lointaine 1895 

(The  Princess  Faraway) 

Translated  by  Charles  Renauld  (Stokes). 
La   Samaritaine 1897 

(The  Woman  of  Samaria) 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac 1897 

Translated     by     Gertrude     Hall     (Doubleday, 

Page),  Gladys  Thomas  and  M.  F.  Guillemand 

(R.  H.  Russell),  and  Charles  Renauld  (Stokes). 
L'Aiglon     1900 

(The  Eaglet) 

Translated   as   L'Aiglon   by   Louis   N.    Parker 

(Russell). 
Chantecler    1910 

Translated    as    Chantecler    by    Gertrude    Hall 

(Duffield). 
Le   Bois  sacre 1910 

(The  Sacred  Wood) 

A  pantomime  accompanied  by  a  poem. 

References: 
E.  E.  Hale,  Jr.,  Dramatists  of  To-day.     (Holt.) 
Louis  Haugmard,  Edmond  Rostand.      (Sansot.) 
Adolphe  Brisson,  Portraits  intimes,  2eme  Serie.      (Colin.) 
Adolphe    Brisson,    Le    Theatre    et    les    mceurs.      (Flam- 

marion.) 
Barrett  H.   Clark,   The  Continental  Drama  of  To-day. 

(Holt.) 
Augustin  Filon,  De  Dumas  a  Rostand.      (Colin.) 
G.  K.  Chesterton,  Five  Types.     (Holt.) 

Magazines  : 
Arena,  vol.  xxxiv  (p.  225)  ;  North  American  Review,  vol. 
clxxii   (p.  794)  ;  Critic,  vol.  xxxix  (p.  437)  ;  Edin- 
burgh Review,  vol.  cxcii  (p.  307)  ;  McClure's,  vol. 
xiv  (p.  437) ;  Atlantic,  vol.  Ixxxii  (p.  826). 
210 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


JULES  LEMAITRE 
Plays  : 
Revoltee   1 889 

(The  Woman  Who  Revolted) 
Le  Depute  Leveau 1 890 

(Deputy  Leveau) 
Mariage  blanc 1891 

(A  Blank  Marriage) 

FHpote    1893 

Les  Rois 1893 

(The  Kings) 
L'Age  difficile 1895 

(The  Difficult  Age) 
Le  Pardon   1 895 

Translated  as  Forgiveness  by  Frances  C.  Fay,  in 

Poet  Lore,  vol.  24,  and  by  Barrett  H.  Clark,  as 

The  Pardon,  in  Three  Modern  Plays  from  the 

French.     (Holt.) 
La  Bonne  Helene 1 896 

(Good  Helen) 
L'Ainee    1898 

(The  Eldest  Daughter) 
La  Massiere 1 905 

(The  Studio  Assistant) 

Bertrade  1905 

Le  Mariage  de  Telemaque.     (In  collaboration  w^ith 

Maurice  Donnay)    1910 

(Telemachus'  Marriage) 
La  Princesse  de  Cleves,  a  dramatization  from  Mme. 

de  La  Fayette's  novel,  has  not  yet  been  produced. 

References: 
E.  Sansot-Orland,  Jules  Lemaitre.     (Sansot.) 
Victor  Magdeleine,  Jules  Lemaitre.     (Mericant.) 
Emile  Poiteau,  Quelques  Ecrivains  de  ce  temps.     (Gras- 
set.) 

211 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Henry  Bordeaux,  Ames  modernes.  (Perrin.) 
Adolphe  Brisson,  Portraits  intimes.  (Colin.) 
Barrett  H.  Clark,   The  Continental  Drama  of  To-day. 

(Holt.) 
Barrett  H.  Clark,  Three  Modern  Plays  from  the  French. 

(Holt.) 

ALFRED  CAPUS 
Plays: 
Brignol  et  sa  fille 1894 

Translated    as   Brignol   and    his   Daughter,    by 

Barrett  H.   Clark.      (French,  New  York.) 
Innocent!     (Collaboration  with  A.  AUais) 1896 

(Innocent!) 

Rosine    1897 

Petites  f olles    1 897 

(Little  Fools) 
Manage  bourgeois 1898 

(Bourgeois  Marriage) 
Les  Maris  de  Leontine 1900 

(Leontine's  Husbands) 
La  Bourse  ou  la  vie 1 900 

(Money  or  Your  Life) 
La  Veine   1901 

(Luck) 
La  Petite  Fonctionnaire 1901 

(The  Petty  Official) 
Les  Deux  Ecoles 1902 

(The  Two  Schools) 
La  Chatelaine   1902 

(The  Mistress  of  the  Chateau) 
Le  Beau  jeune  homme 1903 

(The  Handsome  Young  Man) 
L'Adversaire    1903 

(The  Adversary) 
Notre  Jeunesse    1904 

(Our  Youth) 

212 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Monsieur   Piegois    1905 

L'Attentat.     (In  collaboration  with  L.  Descaves) .  .1906 

(The  Assault) 
Les  Passageres 1906 

(Wayfarers) 
Les  Deux  hommes 1908 

(The  Two  Men) 
L'Oiseau  blesse   1908 

(The  Wounded  Bird) 
Un  Ange   1909 

(An  Angel) 
L'Aventurier    1910 

Translated    as    The    Adventurer    by    Benedict 

Papot,  in  The  Drama,  November,  19 14. 
Les  Favorites 1911 

(The  Favorites) 
En  Garde!     (In  collaboration  with  Pierre  Veber) .  ,1912 

(On  Guard!) 

Helene  Ardouin 1913 

L'Institut  de  Beaute 1913 

(The  Beauty  Shop) 

References: 
Edouard  Quet,  Alfred  Capus.     (Sansot.) 
P.  Acker,  Petites  Confessions.     (Fontemoing.) 
Alfred  Capus,  Notre  Epoque  et  le  theatre.     (Charpen- 
tier.) 

Magazines  : 
The  Drama,  November,  1914. 


HENRY  BATAILLE 

Plays  : 

La  Belle  au  bols  dormant.     (In  collaboration  with 

Robert  d'Humieres) 1894 

(The  Sleeping  Beauty) 

213 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

La  Lepreuse 1897 

(The  Woman  Leper) 
Ton  Sang 1897 

(Thy  Blood) 
L'Enchantement     1900 

(The  Enchantment) 
Le  Masque 1902 

(The  Mask) 
Maman  CoHbri  1905 

(Mother  Colibri) 
La  Marche  nuptiale 1905 

(The  Wedding  March) 

Poliche    1906 

La  Femme  nue 1908 

(The  Nude  Woman) 
Le  Scandale 1 909 

(The  Scandal) 
Le  Songe  d'une  nuit  d'amour 1910 

(The  Dream  of  a  Night  of  Love) 
La  Vierge  folle 1910 

(The  Foolish  Virgin) 
L'Enfant  de  I'amour 191 1 

(The  Love-child) 
Les  Flambeaux 1912 

(The  Torches) 
Le   Phalene 1913 

(The  Night-moth) 

References: 
Denys  Amiel,  Henry  Bataille.     (Sansot.) 
Paul  Abram,  Notes  de  Critique.     (Sansot.) 
Remy  de  Gourmont,  Le  Deuxieme  Livre  des  Masques. 

(Mercure  de  France.) 
Georges  Casella  et  Ernest  Gaubert,  La  Nouvelle  littera- 

ture.     (Sansot.) 
Paul   Melotte,  Essai  sur  le  theatre  futur.     (Dechenne, 

Bruxelles.) 

214 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


HENRY  BERNSTEIN 
Plays : 
Le  Marche 1900 

(The  Bargain) 
Le  Detour   1902 

(The  Detour) 

Joujou    1902 

Le   Bercail 1 904 

(The  Sheepfold) 
Frere     Jacques.     (In     collaboration     with     Pierre 

Veber)    1904 

(Brother  Jacques) 
La  Rafale 1905 

(The  Whirlwind) 
La  Grifife 1906 

(The  Claw) 
Le   Voleur 1906 

Translated  as  The  Thief,  by  Allan  Haughton 

(Doubleday,   Page,   in  Drama  League  Series). 

Israel    1908 

Samson   1 908 

Aprcs  Moi ! 191 1 

(After  Me!) 
L'Assaut    1912 

(The  Attack) 
Le  Secret 1913 

(The  Secret) 

References: 
Paul  Abram,  Notes  de  critique.      (Sansot.) 
Emile  Poiteau,  Quelques  Ecrivains  de  ce  temps.     (Gras- 

set.) 
Paul  Melotte,  Essai  sur  le  theatre  futur.      (Dechenne.) 
Introduction  to  the  translation  of  The  Thief  above 
referred  to. 


215 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Magazines  : 
Forum,  vol.  xlii  (p.  571),  vol.  xxxix  (p.  369)  ;  Collier's, 
vol.  xliv  (p.  21) ;  Nation,  vol.  xcii  (p.  274). 

ROBERT  DE  FLERS  AND  GASTON-ARMAND 
DE  CAILLAVET 

Plays  : 
Le  Coeur  a  ses  raisons 1902 

(The  Heart  has  its  Reasons) 
Les  Sentiers  de  la  vertu 1903 

(The  Paths  of  Virtue) 
La   Montansier.     (In  collaboration  vs^ith   M.  Jeof- 

frin)    1904 

(Montansier) 
L'Ange  du  Foyer 1905 

(The  Angel  of  the  Hearth) 
Miquette  et  sa  mere 1906 

(Miquette  and  her  Mother) 
La  Chance  du  mari 1906 

(The  Husband's  Luck) 
L'Amour  veille   • 1907 

(Love  Watches) 
L'Eventail    1907 

(The  Fan) 
Le.Roi.     (In  collaboration  w^ith  E.  Arene) 1908 

(The  King) 
L'Ane  de  Buridan    1909 

(Buridan's  Donkey) 

Papa   1910 

Le  Bois  sacre 19 10 

(The  Sacred  Grove) 

Primerose  191 1 

L'Habit  vert   1912 

(The  Green  Coat) 
Venise 1913 

(Venice) 

216 


GENERAL  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Le  Belie  aventure.     (In  collaboration  with  Etienne 

Rey)     1913 

(The  Splendid  Adventure) 

References: 
Paul  Flat,  Figures  du  theatre  contemporain.     (Sansot.) 

Magazines  : 
Munsey,  vol.  i  (p.  288)  ;  Theatre^  vol.  xviii  (p.  114),  vol. 
xvii  (p.  50). 


217 


INDEX 


Adam,  Villiers  de  I'lsle,  xxii. 
Adversaire,  U,  147. 
Affranchie,  L',  95,  96. 
Age  difficile,  V,  129. 
Aicard,  Jean,  xix;  151. 
Aiglon,  L',  xviii;  103,  114,  115, 

At  nee,  U,  132. 

Amants     {Lovers),     xii,     xiii, 

xiv;   48,   86,   92,  93,  95,  96, 

162. 
Amour  brode,  V,  5,  ii. 
Amour  de  Manon,  L',  50. 
Amour  veille,  L',  i8o,  182,  193, 

197- 
Amoureuse,   xii,    xiii;    43,    48, 

50,  51,  130,  132. 
Ancey,  Georges,  xix,  xxv,  xxvi. 
Andreyev,  Leonid,  xvii. 
Ane  de  Buridan,  V,  180,  182. 
Ange,  Un,  149. 
Annales   du    theatre   et   de   la 

musigue,  Les,  49. 
Antoine,  Andre,  xiv,  xvii,  xxi, 

xxii,   xxiii,   xxiv,   xxv,   xxvi, 

xxvii,  xxviii;  4,  22,  29,  70, 

113- 
Antoine,  Theatre,  xv;   168. 
Apres  Mot!,  177. 
A r  vent,  U,  xxvi. 
Armature,  L',  54. 
Assaut,  L'   {The  Attack),  177. 
Attack,  The  (See  Assaut,  U). 
Attentat,  L',  147. 
Augier,    Emile,    xvi,    xix;    21, 

24.  35.  39- 
Autre  Danger,  L',  97. 
A  varies,        Les         {Damaged 

Goods),   i8,   19,  20,  22,  23, 

24,  26,  30,  48. 


Aventurier,  V,  147,  148. 


Bagatelle,  54,  57,  65,  66,  67. 
Bahr,   Hermann,  xv. 
Banville,    Theodore    de,     103, 

105. 
Barker,  Granville,  xiv. 
Barricade,  La,  xiv. 
Bascule,  La,  98. 
Bataille,    Henry,   xi,   xvi;    40, 

102,  151-166,  169. 
Becque,  Henry,  xvii,  xxvii;  21. 
Belle    an    bois    dormant.    La, 

153. 
Benavente,  Jacinto,  66. 
Benoist,   Antoine,   64,   98,    146. 
Bercail,  Le,  168. 
Berceau,  Le,  22,  25. 
Bergerat,  Emile,  xxii. 
Bernard  Palissy,  21. 
Bernard,  Tristan,  x,  xv. 
Bernhardt,  Sarah,  54,  114. 
Bernhardt,      Theatre      Sarah, 

"9- 
Bernstein,  Henry,  xi,  xvi;  130, 

131,  148,  IS4,  15s,  156,  167- 

177. 
Bertrade,  133,  135. 
Bienfaiteurs,    Les     {The    Phi- 
lanthropists), 21,  22,  28,  30. 
Bjornson,     Bjornstjerne,     xiv, 

XV. 

Blanchette,  xxvi;  18,  19,  21, 
22,  23,  24,  25,  27,  28,  30,  146. 

Blanchette  and  The  Escape, 
22. 

Blue  Bird,  The,  119. 

Bodinihre,  La,  xviii. 

Bois  sacri,  Le  (Rostand),  119. 


219 


INDEX 


Bois    sacre,    Le     (Flers    and 

Caillavet),  i8o,  182,  189. 
Bonne  Helene,  La,  132. 
Boubouroche,  xxvi. 
Bouffons,  Les,  xix. 
Bourgeois  in  the  Country,  The 

(See  Bourgeois  aux  champs, 

Le). 
Bourgeois     aux     champs,     Le 

{The      Bourgeois      in      the 

Country),  21,  23,  25,  35,  37, 

66. 
Bourget,  Paul,  x,  xiv;  121, 
Bourse  ou  la  vie.  La,  143. 
Brieux,    Eugene,    xi,    xiv,    xv, 

xvii,    xix,    XXV,    xxvi,    xxvii ; 

18-39,  48,  54,  55.  66,  68,  69, 

96,    97,    102,    146,    148,    162, 

167,  171,  182. 
Brignol   et   sa   fille,    140,    142, 

H3,  149,  150. 
Brisson,  Adolphe,  xv;   28,  64, 

104,  112,  177. 
Brunetiere,  Ferdinand,  56,  121, 

169. 

Caillavet,  Gaston-Armand  d^, 

xi,  XV ;  66,  147,  171,  177-198. 
Calmette,  Gaston,  179. 
Capus,    Alfred,    xi,    xvi,    xix; 

20,  21,  68,  73,  137-150,  i7i» 

179. 
Catherine,  69,  77. 
Cazin,  3. 
Chance     de     Franqoise,     La, 

xxvi;  42. 
Chantecler,   xi,   xviii;    43,    80, 

102,  103,  108,  116,  117,  118. 
Chatelaine,  La,  147. 
Chat  Noir,  94. 
Chemineau,  Le,  xviii,  xix. 
Clairiere,  La,  96. 
Claretie,  Jules,  104. 
Claudel,  Paul,  x,  xviii. 
Cluny,  Theatre,  21,  139. 
Coraedie    Fran^aise     (Theatre 

Franqais),    xxv;    4,    13,    29, 

70,  78.  99,  103,  177. 


Comedie  Royale,  50. 
Come  le  foglie,  162. 
Connais-toi,  54,  57,  65. 
Contemporains,  Les,   121,   123. 
Coolus,  Remain,  x. 
Coquelln,  Benoit-Constant,  114. 
Corbeaux,  Les,  xxvii. 
Coup  d'aile,  Le,  13,  14,  15. 
Course  du  Flambeau,  La,  53, 

55,  57,  59,  65,  66. 
Courteline,  Georges,  x,  xxvi. 
Courtney,  William  L.,  xviii. 
Couvee,  La,  22,  30. 
Croisset,  Francis  de,  xv. 
Curel,    Frangois    de,    xi,    xiii, 

xiv,    xvii,    xxv,    xxvi,    xxvii, 

xxviii;    1-17,    127,    130,    182. 
Cyrano   de  Bergerac,  xi,   xiv, 

xviii;  43,  80,  102,   103,  ii2, 

114,  115,  117. 

Damaged    Goods    (See    Ava- 

ries,  Les). 
Danse   devant   le  Miroir,  La, 

xiii;  lo,  13,  15,  130. 
Darwin,  139. 
Daudet,    Alphonse,    xxii;     51, 

53,  151- 
Davies,  Hubert  Henry,  130. 
Decorating     Clementine     (See 

Bois  sacre,  Le). 
Dedale,  Le,  54,  57,  59,  176. 
De  Dumas  a  Rostand    {Mod- 
ern  French   Drama),   xvii- 

xviii. 
Delines,  M.,  xvi. 
Denon,  Vivant,  53. 
Depute  Leveau,  Le,  125. 
Descaves,  Lucien,  x;  96. 
Deserteuse,  La,  22. 
Destin  est  Maitre,  Le,  54,  66. 
Detour,  Le,  168. 
Deux    Ecoles,    Les,    138,    146, 

150. 
Deux  fautes,  Les,  42. 
Deux  Hommes,  Les,  147. 
Deux  Pierrots,  Les,  103. 
Divorqons!,  146. 
20 


INDEX 


Donnay,  Maurice,  xi,  xli,  xiv, 
xvi,  xix;  19,  21,  40,  47,  48, 
68,  80,  86-101,  132,  138,  147, 
154,  162. 

Don  Quichotte,  xviii. 

Douloureuse,  La,  94,  95. 

Drame  sous  Phillipe  II,  Un, 
42. 

Drames  de  I'Amour  et  d'Ami- 
tie,  50. 

Duel,  Le,  69,  77,  81,  83,  84. 

Dumas,  fils,  Alexandre,  xix. 

Eclatreuses,  Les,  100. 
Education  de  Prince,  98. 
Eleve,  L',  50. 

Enchantement,  L',  153,  156. 
En  Famille,  xxii. 
Enfant  de  I'amour,  L',  156. 
En^renage,  L',  xiv;  21,  22. 
Emgme,  L',  53,  57,  58. 
Envers  d'une  sainte,  L',  3,  5, 

10,  II. 
Escalade,  V,  99. 
Esther  Brandes,  xviii. 
Ete    de    la    Saint-Martin,    V, 

135- 

Eugene  Brieux,  The  Man  and 
His  Plays  (by  P.  V.  Thom- 
as), 22. 

Evasion,  L',  xxii ;  22. 

Eventail,  L',  180,  182,  187,  193. 

Every  Evening  (See  Scene  de 
tons  les  soirs). 

Fabre,  Emile,  x,  xiv,  xxvi, 
xxvii. 

Faith  and  Fireside,  xvi. 

Famille,  Une,  70,  71. 

Fantasticks,  The  (See  Roman- 
esques, Les). 

Fauchois,  Rene,  xviii. 

Faust  (Bataille),  166. 

Faust  (Rostand),  120. 

Femme  nue.  La  {The  Nude 
fFoman),  xi;  151,  154,  155,^ 
156,  162. 

22 


Femme  seule.  La,  23,  24,   31, 

.97,  146. 
Figurante,  La,  5,  11. 
Fille  sauvage.  La,  13. 
Filon,  Augustin,  xvii,  xviii. 
Fils  de  Giboyer,  Le,  24. 
Five  Frankfurters,  The,  xv. 
Flambeaux,  Les,  156. 
Flambee,  La,  164. 
Flaubert,     Gustave,     51,     102, 

121,  122. 
Flers,   Robert   de,   xi,   xv;    35, 

66,  140,  147,  171,  177-198. 
Fleur  merveilleuse,  La,  xix. 
Flipote,  127. 
Foi,  La,  23,  30. 
Foolish      Virgin,      The      (See 

Vierge  folle,  la). 
Fossiles,  Les,  2,  6,  10,  128. 
Franqaise,    La    {The    French- 

tvoman),  21,  22,  30. 
France,  Anatole,  20. 
Frenchivoman,  The  (See  Fran- 

qaise.  La). 

Galsworthy,  John,  xiv,  xv. 
Gant  rouge,  Le,  103. 
Gay  Lord  Quex,  The,  149. 
Geffroy,  Gustave,  142. 
Gendre  de  M.  Poirier,  Le,  39. 
Georgette  Lemeunier,  96. 
Giacosa,  Giuseppe,  162. 
Ginisty,  Paul,  xxvi. 
Goncourts,  The,  xxii. 
Gorky,  Maxim,  xv. 
Gout  du  Vice,  Le,  81,  83. 
Grand  Theatre,  94. 
Griff e.  La,  168. 
Guinon,  Albert,  x,  xxvi. 
Guitry,  Lucien,  96,  148. 
Guitry,  Sacha,  x. 
Gyranase,  Theatre,  xxv. 

Habit  vert,  L',  180,  182,   189, 

193- 
Halbe,  Max,  70. 
Hamlet,  121. 


INDEX 


Hamsun,  Knut,  xv. 
Hannetons,  Les,  22,  30. 
Halevy,  Ludovic,  132,  135,  178, 

180. 
Hauptmann,  Gerhart,  xiv,  xv, 

xvii ;   80. 
Helene  Ardouin,  147. 
Hennique,    Leon,     xxiii,     xxv, 

xxvi. 
Hennequin,  Maurice,  x. 
Hermant,  Abel,  x. 
Hervieu,  Paul,  xi,  xvii;  52-67, 

69,    82,    96,    102,    131,    132, 

139,  146,  162,  167,  171,  176, 

182. 
Hugo,  Victor,  41,  50,  112,  113. 
Humieres,  Robert  d',  152. 
Huneker,  James,  64. 

Ibsen,  Henrik,  xiv,  xv,  xxviii ; 

6,  161,  162. 
Impressions    de    theatre,    Les, 

121. 
I  n  fid  el  e,  L',  42,  43. 
Institut  de  Beaute,  L',  149. 
Invitee,  L',  6. 
Ironmaster,  The,  121. 
Israel,  154,  169,  173,  176,  177. 

Jones,  Henry  Arthur,  xiv;  148. 
Joujou,  168. 

Jullien,   Jean,   xix,   xxiii,   xxv, 
xxvi. 

Kistemaeckers,  Henry,  x;  169. 
Klein,   Charles,   144, 
Konzert,  Das,  xv. 

Le  Bargy,  78. 
Labiche,  Eugene,  35. 
Lamb,  Charles,  74. 
Lavedan,  Henri,  xi,  xix,  xxv; 

6,  68-85. 
Le  Brun,  Roger,  4,  95. 
Lemaitre,  Jules,  xi;  28,  29,  80, 

94,  98,  1 21-13 6,  150. 
Leneru,  Marie,  x. 
Lengyel,  Melchior,  xvi. 


Lepreuse,  La,  153. 
Liberma,  Marco  F.,  117. 
Lindau,  Paul,  xv. 
Loi   de   I'Homme,  La,   53,    56, 

57,  58- 
Lovers  (See  Amants). 
Luck  (See  Veine,  La). 
Lugne-Poe,  xiv,  xv;   152. 
Lysistrata,  94. 

Maeterlinck,    Maurice,    ix,   x; 

119. 
Maman  Colibri,  156. 
Manet,  3. 

Manon  fille  galante,  166. 
Marc  he,  Le,  168. 
Marc  he  nuptiale.  La,  154,  155, 

161. 
Mariage  blanc,  126,   127,   130, 

133. 
Mariage  bourgeois,  143. 
Mariage    de    Telemaque,    Le, 

132. 
Mariage  d'Olympe,  Le,  24. 
Mari  malgre  lui,  Le,  139. 
Maris   de  Leontine,  Les,    143, 

Marquis  de  Priola,  Le,  69,  77, 

80,  81,  83. 
Marx,  Claude  R.,  41,  43. 
Mason,  John,  177. 
Masque,  Le,  154,  156,  161. 
Massiere,  La,  125,  132,  134. 
Maternite  (Maternity),  18,  19, 

21,  22,  23,  25,  30. 
Maternity    (See  Maternite). 
Matthews,  Brander,  ix. 
Maugham,  Somerset,  148. 
Maupassant,   Guy   de,  42,   51, 

53,  121. 
Maurras,  Charles,  4. 
M.  de  Reboval,  22. 
Meilhac,  Henri,  132,  135,  178, 

180, 
Menage    de   Moliere,    Le,    93, 

99. 
Menages  d' Artistes,  xxvi;   22. 
Metenier,  Oscar,  xxii. 


222 


INDEX 


Millet,  3. 

Mind-the-Paint  Girl,  The,  149. 

Miquette  et  sa  mere,  i8o,  182. 

Mirbeau,  Octave,  139. 

Misanthrope,  Le,  121. 

Mistral,  Frederic,  151. 

Modestie,  54,  57. 

Moliere,   xix;    28,   35,   93,   99, 

121. 

Mollusc,  The,  130. 

Monet,  3. 

Monsieur  Bretonneau,  66,  187. 

Monsieur  Piegois,  149. 

Moore,   George,   40. 

Moulin  Rouge,  xxi. 

Mrs.  Dane's  Defence,  169. 

Mrs.  JVarren's  Profession,  xv. 

Musset,  Alfred  de,  105,  113. 

tiotre  Jeunesse,  147. 
tlouveau  Jen,  Le,  73,   74,  75, 

77,  81. 
Nouvel-Ambigu,    Theatre    du, 

Nouvelle  idole,  La,  12,  13. 
Nude      Woman,      The      (See 

Femme  nue.  La). 
Nuit  bergamesque,  La,  xxii. 

Odeon,    Theatre    de    I',    xviii, 

xxi,  xxii ;  4,  140. 
Ohnet,   Georges,   121. 
Oiseau  blesse,  L',  147. 
Oiseaux  de  passage,  96. 
Opera  Comique,  132. 

Pailleron,  Edouard,  xv. 

Palais-Royal,  Theatre  du,  179. 

Papa,  180,  182. 

Paradis  perdu,  Le,  50. 

Paraitre,  99. 

Pardon,  Le,  125,  129,  130,  131, 

132. 
Paroles   Res  tent,   Les,   53,    54, 

57-. 
Parisienne,  La,  xxvii. 

Par  le  Glaive,  xviii. 
Passe,  Le,  40,  48. 


Pere  Lebonnard,  Le,  xix. 

Petard,  84. 

Petite  Amie,  La,  22. 

Petite  Fonctionnaire,  La,   144, 

146,  150. 
Phalene,  Le,  155,  156. 
Philanthropists,       The       (See 

Bienfaiteurs,  Les). 
Pinero,   Sir  Arthur,  xiv;    149. 
Playboy      of      the      Western 

World,  The,  xv. 
Point  de  Lendemain,  53,  57. 
Poizat,  Albert,  xviii. 
Poliche,  154,  155,  156,  162. 
Porte     Saint-Martin,     Theatre 

de  la,  XXV ;  42,  66,  112. 
Porto-Riche,    Georges    de,    xi, 

xiii,     xiv,     xvi,     xxv,     xxvi, 

xxvii;    21,    40-51,    52,    102, 

120,  130,  132,  154. 
Pour  Vivre  heureux,  169. 
Poiver  of  Darkness,  The,  xxii. 
Prater,  M.,  xvi. 
Prevost,  Marcel,  139. 
Prince  d'Aurec,  Le,  6,  68,  75, 

77.  80,  85. 
Princes se  de   Cleves,  La,  135. 
Princesse    lointaine.    La,    107, 

108,   III,  112,  117. 
Primerose,  182. 
Prothetes,  Les,  28. 
Prozor,   Marquis  de,    162. 
Pygmalion,  xv. 


Racine,  121,  154. 

Rafale,  La,  168. 

Red  Robe,  The  (See  Robe 
rouge,  La). 

Rejane,  Madame,  43,  96. 

Rejane,  Theatre,  xv;   53,   119. 

Remplaqantes,  Les  (The  Sub- 
stitutes), 21,  22,  25. 

Renaissance,  Theatre  de  la, 
xxv;  127. 

Renard,  Jules,  x. 

Renauld,  Charles,  107. 

Repas  du  lion,  Le,  xiv;  11. 

23 


INDEX 


Reponse    it    I'inquete    de    M. 

B'tnet,  3. 
Resultat  des  courses!,  22,  25, 

28,  29,  30. 
Resurrection,  154. 
Retour  de  Jerusalem,  Le,  98, 

99. 
Revanche,  La,  50. 
Reveil,  Le,  54,  57,  64,  65. 
Revoliee,  123,  124,  125,  132. 
Richepin,  Jean,  x,  xviii. 
Ri voire,  Andre,  xviii;  169. 
Robe    rouge.    La     {The    Red 

Robe),  xiv;    19,  22,  23,  24, 

25,  26,  30,  169. 
Roi,  Le,  i8o,  182,  189,  190,  193. 
Rois,  Les,  124,  127,  130. 
Romanesques,  Les    {The  Fan- 

tasticks),  104,  105,  112,  119. 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  105. 
Rosine,  142,  143,   150. 
Rossler,  Carl,  xv. 
Rostand,    Edmond,   x,   xi,   xiv, 

xviii ;  80,  102-120. 
Rostand,  Madame,  112. 
Rousseau,  121. 

Salandri,  Gaston,  21. 
Samaritaine,  La,  iii,  112,  117. 
Samson,  169,  171,  177. 
Sarcey,    Francisque,    xxii ;    43, 

121. 
Sardou,  Victorien,  xxiv. 
Scandale,  Le,  154. 
Scene  de  tous  les  soirs  {Every 

Evening),  72. 
Schaye,  Paul-Adrien,  15. 
Schonherr,  Karl,  xvi. 
Schwob,  Marcel,  153. 
Scribe,  Eugene,  xvi,  xix,  xxiv; 

26. 
Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray,  The, 

48. 
Secret,  Le,  155,  177. 
Sentiers  de  la  vertu,  Les,  179. 
Serenade,  La,  xxiii. 
Servir,  84. 
Shakespeare,  xv;  121. 

224 


Shaw,    Bernard,    xi,   xiv,   xv ; 

18,  24,  28,  181. 
Simone,  23,  30. 
Simone,  Madame,  15,  99,  155, 

177. 
Sire,  83. 

Sceur  Philomine,  xxii. 
Songe  d'une  nuit  d'amour,  Le, 

166. 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  153. 
Story  of  Chantecler,  The,  117. 
Stoullig,  Edmond,  48. 
Strindberg,  August,  xv;   6. 
Substitutes,  The  (See  Rempla- 

qantes,  Les). 
Sudermann,  Hermann,  80. 
Suzette,  23,  30. 
Synge,  John  M.,  xv. 


Tango,  Le,  xix. 

Tenailles,  Les,  53,  56,  57,  58, 

59,  66,  67,  132. 
Thalasso,  Adolphe,  xxiii. 
Theatre  de  I'Oeuvre,  xiv;  152. 
Theatre      d'aujourd'hui,      Le, 

146. 
Theatre  et  les  moeurs,  Le,  104. 
Theatre    Libre,    x,    xvii,    xix, 

xxi-xxviii;  5,  22,  42,  70,  112, 

124. 
Theroigne    de   Mericourt,    54, 

57.  59- 
Thief,  The   (See  Voleur,  Le). 
Thomas,  P.  V.,  21,  22. 
Three  Daughters   of  M.   Du- 

pont    (See    Trois    Filles    de 

M.  Dupont,  Les). 
Three  Plays  by  Brieux,  18,  22. 
Tolstoy,     Leo,    xiv,    xv,    xvi, 

xxii;  154. 
Ton  Sang,  153. 
Torrent,  Le,  96,  98. 
Trarieux,  Gabriel,  xviii. 
Travaux  d'Hercule,  Les,   179, 

180. 
Trots    Filles    de    M.    Dupont, 

Les   {The  Three  Daughters 


INDEX 


of  M.  Dupont),   i8,  22,  25, 

27,  28,  30.  _ 
Turgenev,  xvi. 
Typhoon,  xvi. 

Vanina,  42. 

Varietes,  Theatre  des,  143,  155. 

Vaudeville,    Theatre    du,    53, 

140. 
Veber,  Pierre,  x. 
Veine,   La    {Luck),    137,    142, 

143,  149.  150. 
Ventres  dares,  Les,  xiv,  xxvi. 
Vertige,  Le,  42. 
V'leil  Homme,  Le,  40,  48,  50. 
Vierge  folle.  La  {The  Foolish 

Virgin),  154,  156,  169. 


Viveurs!,  77. 

Voleur,  Le    {The   Thief),  xi; 

130,  154,  155,  168,  169,  171, 

177. 
Vonoven,  L.,  139. 

Walklev,  A.  B.,  xvi. 
Wedekind,  Frank,  xvii. 
Wilde,  Oscar,  xv. 
Wolff,  Pierre,  x,  xix,  xxv,  xxvi. 
Wordsworth,  151. 

You  Never  Can  Tell,  182. 

Zamacois,  Miguel,  xix. 
Zola,  Emile,  xix,  xxii;  27. 
Zubiri,  50. 


225 


A    SELECTED    LIST 

OF 

DRAMATIC 
LITERATURE 


PUBLISHED  BY 

STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY 

CINCINNATI 


STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY 


Four  Plays  of  the  Free  Theater 

Francois  de  Curd's  The  Fossils 

Jean  Jullien's  The  Serenade 

Georges  de  Porto-Riche's 

Francois e'  Luck 

Georges  Ancey's  The  Dupe 

Translated  <ivtth  an  introduction  on  Antoine  and  Theatre 
Libre  by  BARRETT  H.  CLARK.  Preface  by  BRIEUX,  of  the 
French  Academy,  and  a  Sonnet  by  EDMOND  ROSTAND. 

The  Review  of  Reviews  says: 

"A  lengthy  introduction,  which  is  a  gem  of  con- 
densed information." 

H.  L.  Mencken  (in  the  Smart  Set)  says: 

"Here  we  have,  not  only  skilful  playwriting,  but 
also  sound  literature." 

Brander  Matthews  s^ys: 

"The  book  is  welcome  to  all  students  of  the  modern 
stage.  It  contains  the  fullest  account  of  the  activities 
of  Antoine's  Free  Theater  to  be  found  anywhere — 
even  in  French." 

The  Chicago  Tribune  says: 

"Mr.  Clark's  translations,  with  their  accurate  and 
comprehensive  prefaces,  are  necessary  to  anyone  in- 
terested in  modern  drama  ...  If  the  American  reader 
will  forget  Yankee  notions  of  morality  ...  if  the 
reader  will  assume  the  French  point  of  view,  this  book 
will  prove  a  rarely  valuable  experience.  Mr.  Clark 
has  done  this  important  task  excellently." 

Handsomely  Bound.    l2mo.     Cloth Net,  $1.50 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


The  Antigone  of  Sophocles 

By  PROF.  JOSEPH  EDWARD  HARRY 


An  acting  version  of  this  most  perfect  of  all  dramas. 
A  scholarly  ivork  in  readable  English.  Especiallly 
adaptable  for  Colleges,  Dramatic  Societies,  etc. 


Post  Express,  Rochester: 

"He  has  done  his  work  well."  "Professor  Harry 
has  translated  with  a  virile  force  that  is  almost  Shake- 
spearean." "The  difficult  task  of  rendering  the 
choruses  into  English  lyrical  verse  has  been  very  cred- 
itably accomplished." 

Argonaut,  San  Francisco: 

"Professor  Harry  is  a  competent  translator  not 
only  because  of  his  classical  knowledge,  but  also  be- 
cause of  a  certain  enthusiastic  sympathy  that  shows 
itself  in  an  unfailing  choice  of  words  and  expression." 

North  American,  Philadelphia: 

"Professor  Harry,  teacher  of  Greek  in  the  Cincin- 
nati University,  has  written  a  new  metrical  transla- 
tion of  the  Antigone  of  Sophocles.  The  translation 
is  of  fine  dramatic  quality." 

Oregonian,  Portland: 

"A  splendidly  executed  translation  of  the  celebrated 
Greek  tragedy." 


Herald,  Boston: 

"Scholars  will  not  need  to  be  urged  to  read  this 
noteworthy  piece  of  literary  work,  and  we  hope  that 
many  others  who  have  no  special  scholarly  interest 
will  be  led  to  its  perusal." 

8vo.  cloth.    Dignified  binding Net,  $t.oo 


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ii 


European  Dramatists ' ' 


By  ARCHIBALD  HENDERSON 
Author  of  "George  Bernard  Shaw:  His  Life  and  Works." 

In   the  present  ivork  the   famous  dramatic   critic  and 

biographer    of    Shaiv    has    considered    six    representative 

dramatists  outside  of  the  United  States,  some  living,  some 

dead — Strindberg,  Ibsen,  Maeterlinck,   Wilde,  Shaiv  and 

Barker. 

Velma  Swanston  Howard  says: 

"Prof.  Henderson's  appraisal  of  Strindberg  is  cer- 
tainly the  fairest,  kindest  and  most  impersonal  that 
I  have  yet  seen.  The  author  has  that  rare  combina- 
tion of  intellectual  power  and  spiritual  insight  which 
casts  a  clear,  strong  light  upon  all  subjects  under  his 
treatment." 

Baltimore  Evening  Sun: 

"Prof.  Henderson's  criticism  is  not  only  notable  for 
its  understanding  and  good  sense,  but  also  for  the 
extraordinary  range  and  accuracy  of  its  information." 

Jeanette  L.  Gilder,  in  the  Chicago  Tribune: 

"Henderson  is  a  writer  who  throws  new  light  on 
old  subjects." 

Chicago  Record  Herald: 

"His  essays  in  interpretation  are  welcome.  Mr. 
Henderson  has  a  catholic  spirit  and  writes  without 
parochial  prejudice — a  thing  deplorably  rare  among 
American  critics  of  the  present  day.  *  ♦  *  One  finds 
that  one  agrees  with  Mr.  Henderson's  main  conten- 
tions and  is  eager  to  break  a  lance  with  him  about 
minor  points,  which  is  only  a  way  of  saying  that  he  is 
stimulating,  that  he  strikes  sparks.  He  knows  his  age 
thoroughly  and  lives  in  it  with  eager  sympathy  and 
understanding." 

Providence  Journal: 

"Henderson  has  done  his  work,  within  its  obvious 
limitations,  in  an  exceedingly  competent  manner.  He 
has  the  happy  faculty  of  making  his  biographical 
treatment  interesting,  combining  the  personal  facts  and 
a  fairly  clear  and  entertaining  portrait  of  the  indi- 
vidual with  intelligent  critical  comment  on  his  artistic 
work." 

Photogravure    frontispiece,    handsomely    printed    and 
bound,  large  l2mo Net,  $1.50 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


A^  Last 

You  May  Understand 

G,  B,  S, 

Perhaps  once  in  a  generation  a  figure  of  commanding 
greatness  appears,  one  through  whose  life  the  history  of 
his  time  may  be  read.  There  is  but  one  such  man  to- 
day. 

George  Bernard  Shaw 

HIS  LIFE  AND  WORKS 

A  CRITICAL  BIOGRAPHY  (Authorized) 

By 
ARCHIBALD  HENDERSON,  M.A.Ph.D. 

Is  virtually  the  story  of  the  social,  economic  and 
aesthetic  life  of  the  last  twenty-five  years.  It  is  a  sym- 
pathetic, yet  independent  interpretation  of  the  most  po- 
tent individual  force  in  society.  Cultivated  America  will 
find  here  the  key  to  all  that  is  baffling  and  elusive  in 
Shaw;  it  is  a  cinematographic  picture  of  his  mind  with  a 
background  disclosing  all  the  formative  influences  that 
combined  to  produce  this  universal  genius. 

The  -press  of  the  ivorld  has  united  in  its  praise;  let  us 
send  you  some  of  the  comments.  It  is  a  large  demy  8vo 
volume  cloth,  gilt  top,  628  pages,  with  35  full  page  illus- 
trations in  color,  photogravure  and  halftone  and  numerous 
pictures  in  the  text. 

$5.00  Net 


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A  Few  Critical  Reviews  of 

George   Bernard  Shaw 

His  Life  and  Works 
A  Critical  Biography  (Authorized) 
By  ARCHIBALD  HENDERSON,  M.A.,  Ph.D. 
The  Dial: 

"In  over  five  hundred  pages,  with  an  energy  and 
carefulness    and    sympathy    which    deserve    high    com- 
mendation,   Dr.    Henderson    has   presented   his   subject 
from  all  conceivable  angles." 
The  Bookman: 

"A  more   entertaining  narrative,  whether   in  biog- 
raphy or  fiction,  has  not  appeared  in  recent  years." 
The  Independent: 

"Whatever  George  Bernard  Shaw  may  think  of  his 
Biography  the  rest  of  the  world  will   probably  agree 
that  Dr.  Henderson  has  done  a  good  job." 
Boston  Transcript: 

"There  is  no  exaggeration  in  saying  it  is  one  of  the 
most   entertaining   biographies   of   these  opening  years 
of  the  Twentieth  Century." 
Bernard  Shaw: 

"You  are  a  genius,  because  you  are  somehow  sus- 
ceptible   to    the    really    significant    and    differentiating 
traits  and  utterances  of  your  subject." 
Maurice  Maeterlinck: 

"You  have  written  one  of  the  most  sagacious,  most 
acute  and  most  penetrating  essays  in  the  whole  mod- 
ern moment." 
Edwin  Markham: 

"He   stands   to-day   as   the   chief    literary   critic   of 
the  South,   and  in  the  very  forefront  of  the  critics  of 
the  nation." 
William  Lyon  Phelps: 

"Your  critical  biography  of  Shaw  is  a  really  great 
work." 
Richard   Burton: 

"In  over  five  hundred  pages,  with  an  energy  and 
carefulness  and  sympathy  which  deserves  high  com- 
mendation. Dr.  Henderson  has  presented  his  subject 
from  all  conceivable  angles.  *  *  *  Intensely  witerest- 
ing  •  *  *  sound  and  brilliant,  full  of  keen  insight  and 
happy  turns  of  statement.  *  ♦  *  This  service  Professor 
Henderson's  book  does  perform;  and  I  incline  to  call  it 
a  great  one." 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


'  Short  Plays 

By  MARY  MAC  MILLAN 
To  fill  a  long- felt  ivant.    All  have  been  successfully 

presented.    Suitable    for    Women's    Clubs,    Girls'   Schools, 

etc.     While   elaborate   enough    for   big  presentation,  they 

may  be  given  very  simply. 

Review  of  Reviews: 

"Mary  MacMillan  offers  'Short  Plays,'  a  collec- 
tion of  pleasant  one  to  three-act  plays  for  women's 
clubs,  girls'  schools,  and  home  parlor  production. 
Some  are  pure  comedies,  others  gentle  satires  on 
women's  faults  and  foibles.  'The  Futurists,'  a  skit 
on  a  woman's  club  in  the  year  1882,  is  highly  amus- 
ing. 'Entr'  Act'  is  a  charming  trifle  that  brings  two 
quarreling  lovers  together  through  a  ridiculous  pri- 
vate theatrical.  'The  Ring'  carries  us  gracefully  back 
to  the  days  of  Shakespeare;  and  'The  Shadowed  Star,' 
the  best  of  the  collection,  is  a  Christmas  Eve  tragedy. 
The  Star  is  shadowed  by  our  thoughtless  inhumanity 
to  those  who  serve  us  and  our  forgetfulness  of  the 
needy.  The  Old  Woman,  gone  daft,  who  babbles  in 
a  kind  of  mongrel  Kiltartan,  of  the  Shepherds,  the 
Blessed  Babe,  of  the  Fairies,  rowan  berries,  roses  and 
dancing,  while  her  daughter  dies  on  Christmas  Eve,  is 
a  splendid  characterization." 

Boston  Transcript: 

"Those  who  consigned  the  writer  of  these  plays  to 
solitude  and  prison  fare  evidently  knew  that  'needs 
must'  is  a  sharp  stimulus  to  high  powers.  If  we  find 
humor,  gay  or  rich,  if  we  find  brilliant  wit;  if  we 
find  constructive  ability  joined  with  dialogue  which 
moves  like  an  arrow ;  if  we  find  delicate  and  keen 
characterization,  with  a  touch  of  genius  in  the  choice 
of  names;  if  we  find  poetic  power  which  moves  on 
easy  wing — the  gentle  jailers  of  the  writer  are  justi- 
fied, and  the  gentle  reader  thanks  their  severity." 

Salt  Lake  Tribune: 

"The  Plays  are  ten  in  number,  all  of  goodly  length. 
We   prophesy  great  things  for  this  gifted   dramatist." 

Bookseller,  News  Dealer  «S  Stationer: 

"The  dialogue  is  permeated  with  graceful  satire, 
snatches  of  wit,  picturesque  phraseology,  and  tender, 
often  exquisite,  expressions  of  sentiment." 

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The   Gift 

A  Poetic  Drama 
By  MARGARET  DOUGLAS  ROGERS 

A   dramatic  poem   in  tivo  acts,  treating  in   altogether 
nenu   fashion   the  viorld   old  story    of   Pandora,   the   first 
ivoman. 
New  Haven  Times  Leader: 

"Well  written  and   attractive." 
Evangelical  M  essenger : 

"A   very   beautifully   written   portrayal   of   the   old 
story  of  Pandora." 
Rochester  Post  Dispatch: 

"There  is  much  poetic  feeling  in  the  treatment  of 
the  subject." 
Grand  Rapids  Herald: 

"The    Gift,    dealing    with    this    ever    interesting 
mythological  story,  is  a  valuable  addition  to  the  dramas 
of  the  day." 
St.  Xavier  Calendar: 

"The  story  of  Pandora  is  so  set  down  as  to  bring 
out    its   stage    possibilities.     Told    by    Mrs.    Rogers    in 
exquisite  language." 
Salt  Lake  Tribune: 

"The  tale  is  charmingly  wrought  and  has  possibil- 
ities as  a  simple  dramatic  production,  as  well  as  being 
a  delightful  morsel  of  light  reading." 
Cincinnati  Enquirer: 

"The   love  story  is  delightfully  told   and  the  dra- 
matic action  of  the  play  is  swift  and  strong." 
Buffalo  Express: 

"It  is  a  delightful  bit  of  fancy  with  a  dramatic  and 
poetic  setting." 
Boston  Woman's  Journal: 

"Epimetheus  and  Pandora  and  her  box  are  charm- 
ingly presented." 
Worcester  Gazette: 

"It  is  absolutely  refreshing  to  find  a  writer  willing 
to  risk  a  venture  harking  back  to  the  times  of  the 
Muses  and  the  other  worthies  of  mythological  fame. 
*  *  *  The  story  of  Pandora's  box  told  in  verse  by  a 
woman.  It  may  be  said  it  could  not  have  been  better 
written  had  a  representative  of  the  one  who  only  as- 
sisted at  the  opening  been  responsible  for  the  play." 
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DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


Lucky  Pehr 

By  AUGUST  STRINDBERG 

Authorized   Translation   by   Velma  Sivanston  Hoivard. 

An  allegorical  drama  in  five  acts.     Compared  favorably 

to    Barrie's    "Peter   Pan"   and   Maeterlinck's    "The   Blue 

Bird." 

Rochester  Post  Express: 

Strindberg  has  written  many  plays  which  might  be 
described  as  realistic  nightmares.  But  this  remark  does 
not  apply  to  "Lucky  Pehr."  *  *  *  This  drama  is  one 
of  the  most  favorable  specimens  of  Strindberg's 
genius. 

New  York  World: 

"Pehr"  is  lucky  because,  having  tested  all  things, 
he  finds  that  only  love  and  duty  are  true. 

New  York  Times: 

"Lucky  Pehr"  clothes  cynicism  in  real  entertain- 
ment instead  of  in  gloom.  And  it  has  its  surprises. 
Can  this  be  August  Strindberg,  who  ends  his  drama 
so  sweetly  on  the  note  of  the  woman-soul,  leading  up- 
ward and  on? 

Worcester  Gazette: 

From  a  city  of  Ohio  comes  this  product  of  Swedish 
fancy  in  most  attractive  attire,  attesting  that  the  pos- 
sibilities of  dramatic  art  have  not  entirely  ceased  in 
this  age  of  vaudeville  and  moving  pictures.  A  great 
sermon  in  altruism  is  preached  in  these  pages,  which 
we  would  that  millions  might  see  and  hear.  To  those 
who  think  or  would  like  to  think,  "Lucky  Pehr"  will 
prove  a  most  readable  book.  *  •  *  An  allegory,  it  is 
true,  but  so  are  ^sop's  Fables,  the  Parables  of  the 
Scriptures  and  many  others  of  the  most  effective  les- 
sons ever  given. 

Boston  Globe: 

A  popular  drama.  ♦  •  *  There  is  no  doubt  about 
the  book  being  a  delightful  companion  in  the  library. 
In  charm  of  fancy  and  grace  of  imagery  the  story  may 
not  be  unfairly  classed  with  "The  Blue  Bird"  and 
"Peter  Pan." 
Photogravure    frontispiece    of    Strindberg    etched    by 

Zorn.     Also,  a  reproduction  of  Velma  Svi^anston  Howard's 

authorization. 

Handsomely  bound.     Gilt  top Net,  $1.50 


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Easter 


(A  Play  in  Three  Acts) 
AND  STORIES  BY  AUGUST  STRINDBERG 

Authorized  translation  by  Velma  Siuanston  Hoivard. 
In  this  ivork  the  author  reveals  a  broad  tolerance,  a  rare 
poetic  tenderness  augmented  by  an  almost  divine  under- 
standing of  human  frailties  as  marking  certain  natural 
stages  in  evolution  of  the  soul. 
Louisville  Courier=Journal: 

Here  is  a  major  key  of  cheerfulness  and  idealism 
— a  relief  to  a  reader  who  has  passed  through  some 
of  the  author's  morbid  pages.  *  *  *  Some  critics  find 
in  this  play  (Easter)  less  of  the  thrust  of  a  distinctive 
art  than  is  found  in  the  author's  more  lugubrious 
dramas.  There  is  indeed  less  sting  in  it.  Neverthe- 
less it  has  a  nobler  tone.  It  more  ably  fulfills  the 
purpose  of  good  drama — the  chastening  of  the  spec- 
tators' hearts  through  their  participation  in  the  suf- 
fering of  the  dramatic  personages.  There  is  in  the 
play  a  mystical  exaltation,  a  belief  and  trust  in  good 
and  its  power  to  embrace  all  in  its  beneficence,  to  bring 
all  confusion  to  harmony. 
The  Nation: 

Those  who  like  the  variety  of  symbolism  which 
Maeterlinck  has  often  employed — most  notably  in  the 
"Bluebird" — will  turn  with  pleasure  to  the  short  stories 
of  Strindberg  which  Mrs.  Howard  has  included  in  her 
volume.  *  *  *  They  are  one  and  all  diverting  on  ac- 
count of  the  author's  facility  in  dealing  with  fanciful 
details. 
Bookseller: 

"Easter"  is  a  play  of  six  characters  illustrative  of 
human  frailties  and  the  effect  of  the  divine  power 
of  tolerance  and  charity.  *  *  *  There  is  a  symbolism, 
a  poetic  quality,  a  spiritual  insight  in  the  author's 
work  that  make  a  direct  appeal  to  the  cultured.  *  *  * 
The  Dial: 

One   play   from   his    (Strindberg's)    third,   or   sym- 
bolistic period  stands  almost  alone.     This  is  "Easter." 
There    is    a    sweet,    sane,    life-giving    spirit    about    it. 
Photogravure    frontispiece    of    Strindberg    etched    by 
Zorn.     Also,  a  reproduction  of  Velma  Snvanston  Hov^ard's 
authorization. 
Handsomely  bound.     Gilt  top Net,  $1.50 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


On   the   Seaboard 

By  AUGUST  STRINDBERG 

The    Author's    greatest    psychological    novel.    Author- 
ized Translation  by  Elizabeth  Clarke  Westergren. 

American-Scandinavian  Review: 

"The  description  of  Swedish  life  and  Swedish  scen- 
ery makes  one  positively  homesick  for  the  Skargard 
and  its  moods. 

Worcester  Evening  Gazette: 

"Classes  in  Psychology  in  colleges,  and  Medical  stu- 
dents considering  Pathology  would  derive  much  infor- 
mation from  the  observations  and  reflections  of  the 
commissioner  who  holds  the  front  of  the  stage  whereon 
are  presented  sciences  as  new  to  the  readers  of  to-day 
as  were  those  which  Frederick  Bremer  unfolded  to  the 
fathers  and  mothers  of  critics  and  observers  in  this 
first  quarter  of  the  Twentieth  Century." 

Detroit  Tribune: 

"Hans  Land  pronounced  this  novel  to  be  the  only 
work  of  art  in  the  domain  of  Nietzschean  morals  yet 
written  which  is  destined  to  endure." 

Cincinnati  Times-Star: 

"It  requires  a  book  such  as  'On  the  Seaboard'  to 
show  just  how  profound  an  intellect  was  housed  in  the 
frame  of  this  great  Swedish  writer." 

New  Haven  Leader: 

"His  delineations  are  photographical  exactness  with- 
out retouching,  and  bear  always  a  strong  reflection  of 
his  personality." 

Indianapolis  News: 

"The  story  is  wonderfully  built  and  conceived  and 
holds  the  interest  tight." 

American  Review  of  Reviews: 

"This  version  is  characterized  by  the  fortunate  use 
of  idiom,  a  delicacy  in  the  choice  of  words,  and  great 
beauty  in  the  rendering  of  descriptive  passages,  the 
translation  itself  often  attaininp;  the  melody  of  poetry 
*  *  *  You  may  read  and  re-read  it,  and  every  read- 
ing will  fascinate  the  mind  from  a  fresh  angle." 

Soutli  Atlantic  Quarterly: 

"Only  a  most  unusual  man,  a  genius,  could  have 
written  this  book,  and  it  is  distinctly  worth  reading." 

Handsomely    bound,    uniform    ivith    Lucky    Pehr    and 
Easter  Net,  $1.25 


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The  Hamlet  Problem  and  Its  Solution 

By  EMERSON  VENABLE 

The  tragedy  of  Hamlet  has  never  been  adequately  in- 
terpreted. T<wo  hundred  years  of  critical  discussion  has 
not  sufficed  to  reconcile  conflicting  impressions  regarding 
the  scope  of  Shakespeare's  design  in  this,  the  first  of  his 
great  philosophic  tragedies.  We  believe  that  all  those 
students  luho  are  interested  in  the  study  of  Shakespeare 
ivill  find  this  volume  of  great  value. 
The  LouisviUe  Courler'Jouraat: 

"Mr.  Venable's  Hamlet  is  a  'protagonist  of  a  drama 
of  triumphant  moral  achievement.'  He  rises  through 
the  play  from  an  elected  agent  of  vengeance  to  a 
man  gravely  impressed  with  'an  imperative  sense  of 
moral  obligation,  tragic  in  its  depth,  felt  toward  the 
world.' " 
E.  H.  Sothern: 

"Your  ideas  of  Hamlet  so  entirely  agree  with  my 
own  that  the  book  has  been  a  real  delight  to  me.  I 
have  always  had  exactly  this  feeling  about  the  char- 
acter of  Hamlet.  I  think  you  have  wiped  away  a 
great  many  cobwebs,  and  I  believe  your  book  will 
prove  to  be  most  convincing  to  many  people  who  may 
yet  be  a  trifle  in  the  dark." 
The  Book  News  Monthly: 

"Mr.  Venable  is  the  latest  critic  to  apply  himself 
to  the  'Hamlet'  problem,  and  he  oflFers  a  solution  in 
an  admirably  written  little  book  which  is  sure  to  at- 
tract readers.  Undeterred  by  the  formidable  names 
of  Goethe  and  Coleridge,  Mr.  Venable  pronounces  un- 
tenable the  theories  which  those  great  authors  pro- 
pounded to  account  for  the  extraordinary  figure  of 
the  Prince  of  Denmark.  *  *  *  Mr.  Venable  looks  in 
another  direction  for  the  solution  of  the  problem. 
*  *  *  The  solution  offered  by  the  author  is  just  the 
reverse  of  that  proposed  by  Goethe.  *  *  *  From  Mr. 
Venable's  viewpoint  the  ke>-  to  'Hamlet'  is  found  in 
the  famous  soliloquies,  and  his  book  is  based  upon 
a  close  study  of  those  utterances  which  bring  us  with- 
in the  portals  of  the  soul  of  the  real  Hamlet.  The 
reader  with  an  open  mind  will  find  in  Mr.  Venable  a 
writer  whose  breadth  of  view  and  searching  thought 
gives  weight  to  this  competent  study  of  the  most  inter- 
esting of  Shakespearean  problems." 
i6mo.    Silk  cloth Net,  $i.oo 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


HOW  TO  WRITE 

Moving  Picture  Plays 

By  W.  L.  GORDON 

CONTENTS 

What  is  a  motion  picture?  How  are  moving  pictures 
produced?  What  is  necessary  to  write  photoplays? 
Prices  paid  for  plays.  Kind  of  plays  to  write.  Kind 
of  plays  to  avoid.  Single  reels,  double  reels,  etc.  Prepa- 
ration of  manuscript.  The  plot  and  how  to  obtain  it. 
Title  of  play.  Synopsis.  Cast  of  characters.  Scenario. 
Leaders  of  Sub-Titles.  Letters,  Clippings,  etc.  What 
constitutes  a  scene.  Continuity  of  scenes.  Stage  settings 
and  properties.  Entrance  and  exit  of  characters.  Cli- 
max. Limitations  of  camera.  Length  of  play.  Review. 
Time  required  to  write  a  play.  How  and  where  to  sell 
plays.  A  complete  sample  play  illustrating  every  point 
treated  upon  in  the  instructions.  A  full  list  of  over 
twenty  prominent  film-producing  companies  wanting  and 
buying  plays. 

The  following  extracts  from  letters  of  satisfied  writers, 
addressed  to  the  author,  are  very  convincing  and  be- 
speak the  value  of  this  exhaustive  treatise: 

"  Have  been  successful  in  placing  three  plays,  and  am 
awaiting  news  of  two  additional  ones.  Am  certain  I 
would  never  have  had  that  much  success  if  I  had  not  fol- 
lowed your  instructions." 

"  Your  instructions  entirely  satisfactory.  I  think  that 
any  one  with  common  sense  can  make  a  very  nice  income 
through  moving  picture  play-writing.  My  first  scenario 
has  been  accepted,  and  I  desire  to  thank  you." 


"  You  might  be  interested  to  know  that  my  first  scenario 
completed  according  to  your  instructions  was  accepted  by 
the  Essanay  Film  Co." 

"  Instructions  well  worth  the  money.  Sold  my  first 
scenario  to  the  Edison  Co." 


Handsomely  hound  in  DeLuxe  Cloth Net,  $i.oo 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


The  Truth 

About  The  Theater 

Anonymous 

Precisely  what  the  title  indicates  —  facts  as  they 
are,  plain  and  unmistakable  without  veneer  of  any 
sort.  It  goes  directly  to  the  heart  of  the  whole 
matter.  Behind  the  writer  of  it  —  who  is  one  of 
the  best  known  theatrical  men  in  New  York  —  are 
long  years  of  experience.  He  recites  what  he 
knows,  what  he  has  seen,  and  his  quiet,  calm,  au- 
thoritative account  of  conditions  as  they  are  is  with- 
out adornment,  excuse  or  exaggeration.  It  is  in- 
tended to  be  helpful  to  those  who  want  the  facts, 
and  for  them  it  will  prove  of  immeasurable  value. 

"  The  Truth  About  the  Theater,"  in  brief,  lifts 
the  curtain  on  the  American  stage.  It  leaves  no 
phase  of  the  subject  untouched.  To  those  who  are 
ambitious  to  serve  the  theater,  either  as  players  or 
as  playwrights,  or,  again,  in  some  managerial  ca- 
pacity, the  book  is  invaluable.  To  those,  too,  who 
would  know  more  about  the  theater  that  they  may 
come  to  some  fair  estimate  of  the  worth  of  the  in- 
numerable theories  nowadays  advanced,  the  book 
will  again  prove  its  value. 

Net  $1.00 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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